Gabriel Pombo da Silva has been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for ‘glorifying terrorism’, in a trial in Italy where he was not present.
In this absurd legal proceeding, the Italian state accused and convicted him for acts (writing and/or debating and/or disseminating) committed from inside his cell in a high-security prison in Germany where he was serving a sentence (in Germany, expressing an opinion is not a crime).
The texts were published on three blogs between 2009 and 2012.
Italy has issued a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) against Gabriel, as a result of which he was arrested in Vigo on 7th December 2025 and brought before the Preliminary Investigation Division of the Central Court of First Instance, presided over by Judge Santiago J. Pedraz Gómez; he was released on bail that same day.
This judge has agreed to Gabriel’s arrest and handover to the Italians, although he has made the latter conditional upon their guaranteeing his right to a retrial or to lodge an appeal, which is simply impossible there.
Italy is a state obsessed with eliminating revolutionary anarchists, whom it relentlessly persecutes, torments and imprisons at will.
Throwing an anarchist like Gabriel—whom the mercenary Italian press, on behalf of the police, has dubbed ‘the king of the anarchists’—into the jaws of the Italian anti-anarchist inquisition is tantamount to handing over a Palestinian militant to Israel, or a gay activist to Saudi Arabia; no one doubts the ‘exquisite’ treatment they will receive.
For example, Alfredo Cospito, an anarchist imprisoned in Italy since 2012 and held in extreme solitary confinement (Art. 41 bis) since May 2022, who has been resisting through severe hunger strikes, had this despicable measure extended on 30 April for another four interminable years.
Extreme solitary confinement is extreme torture.
If Gabriel is thrown into the clutches of the Italian judicial system, no one can guarantee that he will return, nor in what condition he will do so.
Our comrade has paid for his selfless dedication and his commitment to the struggle for justice, equality and total freedom with more than thirty years in prison, and now they want to tear him away from his loved ones — his compañera, his daughter — to hand him over, bound and gagged, to the sadistic and anarchophobic Italian state.
We cannot allow this!
We will not allow it!
WE ASK for the widest possible circulation of this statement and of any new information regarding this serious matter.
WE ASK FOR YOUR SOLIDARITY.
LA CONTRATERTULIA (the anarchist radio programme which Gabriel is part of)
source
Translated by Act for freedom now!