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<font size=3>PARDON: RUSSO SPENA, SILVIA BARALDINI RELEASED<br>
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<a href="http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200609262053-1275-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia" eudora="autourl">
http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200609262053-1275-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia<br>
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</a></font><font size=3>(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) - <br>
262053 SET 06 <br><br>
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Italian communists hail end of house arrest for woman convicted in U.S.
for robbery <br>
The Associated Press <br>
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2006 <br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
A communist leader, Giovanni Russo Spena, called freedom for Baraldini
"a good day for democracy."<br>
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