Alfredo Cospito’s hunger strike began last October in protest against a harsh and controversial prison regime known as 41-bis.
By Michela Moscufo, March 21, 2023
Rome, Italy – Thousands across Italy have been protesting against the harsh conditions of Alfredo Cospito’s imprisonment, as fears for the 55-year-old anarchist’s health grow with his hunger strike extending 150 days.
Cospito was jailed for 10 years in 2012 for shooting the chief of a nuclear energy company in the leg, in his words “to punish one of the many sorcerers of the atomic industry”, and was later handed a life sentence for setting off two bombs in front of a police academy near Turin in 2006. Both attacks were non-fatal, and while no one was injured in the bombing, investigators concluded that the explosives were designed to kill.
In May, he was moved to 41-bis, a form of solitary confinement known colloquially as “hard prison” and usually reserved for hardened criminals, such as mafia bosses, becoming the first anarchist to be punished under the regime.
