Interior Minister Giuliano Amato went before Parliament on Tuesday to report on the death Friday of a policemen during a riot by hooligans at a Catania-Palermo soccer derby and admitted that he himself was in part to blame.
Speaking before a nearly deserted House, Amato said there had been great concern at his ministry for security in Catania because of the "excessive rivalry" between the fans of the two Sicilian clubs and for the celebration of Catania's patron saint, Sant'Agata, on Saturday.
For this reason, he explained, a total of 1,350 policemen had been deployed at the stadium.
According to the interior minister, the dynamics of the events which led to the death of police officer Filippo Raciti were still not clear.
In particular, Amato said investigators still did not know the exact moment in which the officer received the blow or blows by a blunt instrument which caused his fatal internal injuries.
Amato ruled out that a firecracker which exploded in Raciti's squad car had anything to do with his death, which apparently took place after he had already received blows to his liver.
Officer Raciti, Amato told the House, continued to perform his duty even after receiving the fatal blows.
Amato confirmed that 34 people were arrested for Friday's violence and that 11 of these were minors.
There has been a trend in increasing hooligan violence at stadiums and a growing number of injuries among law enforcement officer, Amato told the House.
A total of 338 policemen were injured during the 2004-2005 season, Amato recalled, which fell to 158 the following year. However, already this season there have been 228 injuries among police.
The decline, the minister explained, was in part thanks to the crackdown on stadium adopted after violence at April 2005 Milan derby Inter and AC Milan.
The problem, Amato admitted, was that the measures contained in the so-called Pisanu package, named after his predecessor Giuseppe Pisanu, had not been fully implemented.
One of the reasons for this, he said, was that both he and Pisanu had been wrong to allow too many extensions on deadlines to implement the anti-violence measures.
"I, too, am to blame for signing a measure last December authorising prefects to grant stadiums extensions to comply with the Pisanu package," Amato said.
The minister then accused stadium operators, which include some clubs, of "blatantly seeking to avoid applying the law".
As an example, Amato said that in order to avoid the measures adopted for stadiums with a capacity of 10,000 people, "some operators presented documents certifying that the stadiums had a crowd capacity of 9,999. Thus it is obvious they sought to circumvent the law".
The world of soccer, Amato observed, "will continue to exert pressure to ensure that the show goes on. This based on the logic that the state and clubs depend on the revenue generated by soccer".
"It is our duty towards our law enforcement agencies and our citizens to resist this pressure. The well being and safety of Italian families is worth much more than the economic interests which demand that the show must go on," the interior minister said.
