Il Tirreno Giornale
After a bomb was found among the steeples of the Cathedral in Milan, vigilance has been strengthened for fear of an attack
20 December 2000
by Giovanni Paplato
PISA. After a live bomb was found among the steeples of the Cathedral in Milan, surveillance has been strengthened around the Tower and the monuments of Piazza dei Miracoli. It is a directive by the minister of the Interior who, worried by what happened in Milan, has wanted to put under strict surveillance the more visible monuments of the nation. But for the Tower in Pisa, there is a particular attention because already in the mid 1990's, the mafia made it known that it was among its objectives. The boss Giovanni Brusca, called to testify in Florence on the 1993 slaughters, said that a zainetto with 10-15 kilos of explosives, connected to a timer, would have been left inside the Tower.
After those revelations, the monument had been "armored" with continuous watches for fear of attack. The questura had prepared controls day and night. And the watch by the police, had been strengthened now that the bomb positioned on the Cathedral in Milan shows as the assassins can really strike. In Milan, there is a matrix of terrorism, while the alarm on Pisa arrived from the mafia. Things of the past? The minister has decided that nothing must be underestimated.
La Nazione(PISA, Italia, Tuesday 20 December 2000)
by Laura Orsucci
PISA The Tower could be an objective of terrorists. Such alarming news had already come out in testimony from one reformed member in the context of an anti-mafia hearing. Today it returns gain, after the dramatic discovery of a bomb in a steeple of the Milan Cathedral. A bomb manufactured with dust from "Vulcan 03", the same that served the explosive put in a window of Palazzo Marino in 1997, again in Milan.
And while, at the national level, it is investigated in the matrix and on the claims (at the moment regarded with little reliability) of the failed attack of the day before yesterday in the Milanese (meneghina) Cathedral, in the local circle, preventive measures have been implemented immediately to protect the Tower and the other monuments of Piazza dei Miracoli. The decision to intensify the vigilance, with specific measures, has been limited until a meeting Monday.
The Questura has made known that the services have been predisposed by agreement with the Work of the Primaziale and they have all the reinforcements the police force at their disposal. Fixed patrols and "furniture" of the police, and of the carabinieri, of the Finance Guards and of the urban officers have begun the job already of incresaing "special overseeing" with the safety devices already active in the monumental area.
All that is the fruit of a precise ministerial directive going beyond that of the local authorities for the safety that has been directed since the immediateness of the recovery of the explosvies at the Milan Cathedral. There is by this action maximum attention and alert for places of culture in general, as after all the Prefect of Milan has expressed the intent to not "militarize" the zones that might result in objections of sensitivity.
The same criteria applies for Pisa, where the oversight is constant but discreet, and the safety devices already in action are followed closely, not only to arrive before possible episodes linked to terrorism. The safety objective has always been pursued in the Plaza of the Cathedral, and of recent the only episode that alerted the whole zone and mobilized the police was a forgery alarm: a phone call to the town Police signalled, last summer, the presence of a bomb on the Tower.
But it was only one joke, that by some versions was useful to "test" a strong preventive apparatus and to prepare departments for action in the case that an explosive is ever to be recovered. For the rest, the interventions of the bomb experts have been followed in time, but only in relationship to the discovery and to defuse any live wartime explosives from the Second World War.
In each case, the departments are highly qualified and always ready to intervene immediately with the forces and the necessary tools. Prevention puts off unjustified alarms, therefore, and if the state of alert occurs it is comprehended and implemented. And then, overall, the vast majority of the population and the tourists appreciate the constant presence of the police under the Tower and in all the zones of historical-architectural interest.
