Berlusconi vows no G8 cover-up

Berlusconi (left) shakes the hand of Interior Minister Claudio Scajola after delivering his Senate speech

ROME, Italy -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has promised there would be no government cover-up into police handling of the Genoa summit riots.

International pressure has been growing on Italy with several European countries angry at the police tactics used in Genoa.

Berlusconi made the pledge in the opening comments of a 40 minute address to the Senate on the outcome of the summit, which was marred by violence and the death of a protester.

He told the upper house of parliament, the Senate: "As far the government is concerned, we will not cover up anything."

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He told the Senate that last weekend's Group of Eight (G8) summit was a "political and diplomatic success for our country."

He added: "If there were excesses ... there will be no cover-up for those who violated the law. But one must not confuse those who did the attacking and those who were attacked."

There should also be no confusion between those "who defended the law, who defended order and those who railed against law and order," he added.

Berlusconi's government has come under increased pressure at home and abroad to respond to allegations that demonstrators were brutally beaten and that their human and legal rights were violated.

Magistrates have begun several investigations into alleged police brutality. One demonstrator was shot dead and more than 230 injured in two days of violence.

Hours after the prime minister's speech, the Interior Ministry said in a statement it had received a first report from the chief of police on the incidents that surrounded the G8. But it said this needed further investigations.

Police initially arrested 280 people, many of them from outside Italy, though many have now been freed.

On Thursday, Italy's conservative majority rejected opposition calls for an investigation into alleged police brutality during last weekend's clashes in Genoa.

The rejection comes despite the growing sense of anger in other European countries at policing in Genoa. German lawmakers, who visited activists still detained in Genoa, are calling police tactics last weekend brutal and arbitrary.

And in Paris, an estimated 1,500 people marched on the Italian embassy -- but were prevented access by riot police. Similar demonstrations took place in Marseilles, Lyon and Toulouse.

Italy's foreign ministry says it has received no official protests from other governments.

Although the Italian government is not opening an investigation, Italian prosecutors are examining allegations of police brutality. Genoa's police chief says officers will be punished if they committed abuses.

One Briton still recovering in hospital told CNN how police used him "as a human football."

Mark Covell suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung and a ruptured spleen in a police raid on a Genoa school being used by a group coordinating protests.

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he had received assurances from the Italian government at the "highest level" that the allegations of police malpractice made by the demonstrators would be properly investigated.

"We have spoken to the Italian administration at the highest level and they have agreed that these allegations will be fully investigated as part of the wider investigation into police malpractice by the Genoa Public Prosecutor," Straw said.

"The Italians have shown consistently that they live by the rule of law. They have given these undertakings and we expect them to abide by them."

One protester, 23-year-old Carlo Giuliani, was shot dead by a 21-year-old paramilitary police recruit.

He was the first person to die in a demonstration in Italy in 25 years and the first ever to die in violence linked the anti-globalisation protests that have become a feature of international summits in the past two years.

Berlusconi said "we are all pained" by Giuliani's death.

But he repeated that the government could not be held directly responsible for decisions taken by police forces at the summit because all current police chiefs, both national and local, were appointed by the previous centre-left government.

"This (the summit) was all organised by the previous government. We did not invent the red zone. We did not invent the yellow zone," Berlusconi said, referring to the areas of Genoa that were mapped out as security zones for the summit.

"You invented all that," he said, directing his comments to the opposition benches.