Alfredo Cospito

Alfredo Cospito (born 1967) is an Italian anarchist. In his twenties, he refused conscription to military service and was convicted of desertion, then pardoned after going on hunger strike for one month. In 2012, he was sentenced to 10 years for kneecapping the head of the Italian nuclear power company Ansaldo Nucleare. Whilst imprisoned, he was convicted of the 2006 bombing of a Carabinieri barracks in which nobody was harmed. The Supreme Court of Cassation later increased the sentence to life imprisonment without parole. In 2022, Cospito was placed into the 41-bis prison regime which involves solitary confinement for 22 hours every day. In protest, he began a hunger strike in October 2022. Groups supporting Cospito have made demonstrations in Italy and symbolic attacks on Italian diplomatic offices globally; the Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who denounced receiving death threats, blamed an international anarchist network. The Supreme Court of Italy rejected the appeal against his placement in the 41-bis system in March 2023, then the following month the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of allowing the reduction of Cospito's sentence. In response to the latter, he stopped his hunger strike after 180 days on 19 April 2023; he had lost 50 kg. In June 2023, the Turin Court of Assizes reduced the sentence on Cospito regarding the Fossano bombing from life imprisonment to 23 years.