[Ppnews] Italy - Political Prisoner Silvia Baraldini off house arrest

[Political Prisoner News]

PARDON: RUSSO SPENA, SILVIA BARALDINI RELEASED
http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200609262053-1275-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia

(AGI) - Rome, Sept. 26 - Silvia Baraldini has been released from jail 
thanks to the pardon. This was reported by Giovanni Russo Spena, the 
PRC (Refounded Communists) party in the Senate. Baraldini herself was 
the one to inform Russo Spena. "I am very happy about the release of 
Silvia Baraldini, "she said, "She was the one to tell me about it, 
thankful as she was to Parliament for having voted in favour of a 
measure which finally - after years in American prisons and then, 
after the US granted her extradition, in Italian ones - has given her 
back her freedom. Judicial authorities thoroughly examined her case 
but finally came to the conclusion that Silvia does not represent a 
danger, and that her long history of unspeakable suffering makes her 
a valid citizen. For all of us, the group and the party, it is a very 
emotion-filled moment." (AGI) -
262053 SET 06


Italian communists hail end of house arrest for woman convicted in 
U.S. for robbery
The Associated Press

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2006
Rome the remainder of a 40-year U.S. prison sentence for armed 
robberies and links to black militants, is now free thanks to a 
recent, nationwide amnesty, communist politicians announced Tuesday.

When Silvia Baraldini was transferred to her homeland Italy from a 
federal prison in Connecticut in 1999 to serve the remaining 23 years 
of her sentence, the deal included a condition that she not be released early.

But in 2001, Baraldini was transferred to house arrest while she was 
being treated for breast cancer for a few months. A court later 
extended the house arrest. A few years later she began working as a 
researcher for the city of Rome on women in the work world.

A cause celebre among the Italian left, Baraldini was convicted of 
robberies and attempted robberies in the United States, including a 
1981 holdup of a Brinks truck. In 1983, then-federal prosecutor and 
future New York mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, won the long sentence for 
subversive association and other charges.

A guard and two police officers were killed in the holdup. Baraldini 
has said she had nothing to do with the crime. She was also convicted 
in the 1979 kidnapping of New Jersey prison guards to help convicted 
Black Panthers killer Joanne Chesimard escape from prison.

Baraldini, whose sentence was supposed to run out in 2008, benefited 
from a recent amnesty freeing inmates who had less than three years 
to serve on their sentences from Italy's overcrowded jails.

A communist leader, Giovanni Russo Spena, called freedom for 
Baraldini "a good day for democracy."




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