Acts of arson on the high-speed train, Piantedosi convenes safety committee with FS management

Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi has convened a National Committee for Public Order and Security to be held at the Viminale on Monday 16 February at 5.30 p.m. In addition to the heads of the police and intelligence forces, the meeting will also be attended by the top management of the Ferrovie dello Stato Group. The convocation follows the new sabotage on railway lines that occurred on Saturday 14.

Tampered manholes and burnt cables. Saturday saw yet more sabotage on the high-speed line, with the result that train traffic went haywire. Cancellations and delays of up to more than two hours occurred. This time, the Rome-Naples and Rome-Florence lines were in the crosshairs, with two attacks in the capital just before dawn.

The police ascertained that a manhole was tampered with with burnt line cables at Via di Villa Spada, in the Salaria area. Another episode occurred in via di Salone, in the suburbs. A third point to come under the lens was in Capena, where, however, it seems to have been a technical fault. Police and Digos agents of the Rome Police Headquarters have started investigations to trace the perpetrators and a report will be sent to the Public Prosecutor's Office in the next hours.

For those investigating, the arson trail seems clear and a connection with the acts of sabotage that took place last week in Bologna and Pesaro, on the first day of the Winter Olympics, is probable. An action, that of Pesaro, claimed on the blog La Nemesi, a web platform of anarchist and revolutionary counter-information. The suspicion, therefore, is that the new episodes may also be part of the same anarchist campaign launched with the start of the Games in Milan Cortina. Precisely for this reason, on the initiative of the Central Directorate of the Prevention Police, the level of attention and vigilance on the railway network has been raised.

On the model of what was decided in Lecco after the sabotage on the railway line leading to the Olympic venues: coordinated action between all the police forces, with an increase in patrol services along the tracks and constant monitoring of the technical nodes and areas less covered by video surveillance, to intercept in advance any potential signs of threat or emulative action. 'Hateful criminal acts against workers and against Italia', the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport, Matteo Salvini, did not hesitate to call them.