I am Inquiring with regard to a February 2002
incident in which four Moroccan nationals were arrested in Rome on
suspicion of plotting to attack the American embassy by means of
poisoning the water supply to the embassy. At the time of their
arrest, they apparently had copies of maps of the Rome water system,
as well as a hoard of false documentation and Islamic extremist
propaganda. Officials initially said they possessed a powdered
cyanide-based substance that could poison an entire neighbourhood;
however, it was later acknowledged that the chemical found (potassium
ferrocyanide) would be an ineffective poison. Another suspicious
element was that police found a hole in the utility tunnel near the
American embassy. However, in 2004, the Italian court found them
innocent.
In my queries I have found a number of on-line media accounts of the
initial arrest, and brief accounts of the aquittal. Examples would
include accounts found at these two URLs:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1841737.stm
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3666949.stm
I wanted to see if there are any web sites that offer more detailed
information on the incident, particularly what evidence may been
presented at trial. I am hoping that a more fruitful search would be
from Italian sites, but I don't speak Italian. In other cases that I
have researched that have gone to trial, I have often found that court
documents may be available through official court web sites. (At
least I have found that to be the case for courts in the United
States, Great Britain and Australia.) If an official court web site
source can not be found, another suitable source would be a reputable
Italian news magazine or newspaper. As indicated above, I don't read
Italian, but hope to use the Google Language Tools to translate the
page to something usable. |
