On the arrest of Leonardo Landi

Leo had been hunted by the antiterrorism with an international arrest warrant since 2008, when one of the tentacles of the Florence attorney’s office had orchestrated yet another inquest against the anarchist scene in Tuscany. The comrades were accused of subversive association with terrorist aims, some with the specific accusation of having robbed a post office at gunpoint for self-financing.
The associative charge only fell at the preliminary hearing, nevertheless after having had time to confirm pretrial custody of over six months for Paola, over two years for Daniele and Francesco. At the trial, Daniele and Francesco were sentenced to four years, with ‘simplified procedure’, for robbery, whereas similar charges were made against Leo. All the other comrades were acquitted of subversive association under article 270 bis.
Leo was considered a fugitive from 2008 because he was ‘nowhere to be found’ until his arrest a few days ago in Ventimiglia by the (UCIGOS), police prevention unit of the Ministery for Home Affairs. The comrade with him at the time of his arrest is being investigated for aiding and abetting.
We have shared many struggles for the liberation of the Earth, animal liberation and against all kinds of pollution, with Leo in over ten years of Silvestre’s activity, at the places in via Fucini and in via Del Cuore in Pisa. As editor of Terra Selvaggia for years he spent with us perhaps the most difficult period of making the importance of these struggles felt in times when they were being diminished or considered the same way as the reformist green caldron. Priority of intervention that now is beginning to be felt due to the scenario of a dying planet and an ever more cybernetic social context.
Expressions of resistance and dissidence all over the world are being impudently repressed as terrorist with increasing fervour and ferocity, especially when they create problems and cannot be recuperated.
We cannot stay still and look on at this system until it buries us, we must all prevent it from burying every seed of revolt in such a way that it cannot renew itself with the same instruments of destruction.
Wanting Leo free means carrying on the struggle against this techno-industrial system and its many noxious manifestations, which Leo has always been a bitter enemy of and is why the system has put him in prison.
We express our unreserved solidarity and closeness to Leo and all those who every day represent an obstacle to this system of death.
FREEDOM TO LEO
FREEDOM TO ALL REVOLUTIONARY PRISONERS
Il Silvestre, 8 November 2009