Tag Archives: Luca Cristos Bernasconi

Jail sentences for attackers of IBM nanotechnology facility of Switzerland

I hoped to get this final update about the trio who tried to bomb an IBM nanotechnology facility in Switzerland posted sooner. The three individuals who were held and tried last week were sentenced to three years in jail. From the July 22, 2011 news article by Jessica Dacey on swissinfo.ch,

A 26-year-old Swiss-Italian from Ticino and an Italian couple aged 29 and 34 were found guilty by the Federal Criminal Court of conspiring to destroy the IBM centre in Rüschlikon, near Zurich, while it was under construction.

They were also found guilty of importing explosives into Switzerland, then illegally hiding and transporting them.

The three detainees were caught last year about 3km from the IBM facility in possession of 476 grams of explosives and other components needed to build an improvised explosive device.

Also found in their car were 31 letters claiming responsibility for the planned attack in the name of a group calling itself ELF Switzerland Earth Liberation Front. Known in the United States as eco-terrorists, the group carry out “economic sabotage” to stop the destruction of the environment.

The trial has shed light on a loose-knit network of European anarchists, with prosecutors linking the detainees to extremist movements that have claimed responsibility for several violent attacks in the United States and Europe since the 1990s.

In a July 21, 2011 news item published on The Local, prior to sentencing, the three are identified,

Local and international news reports say prosecutor Hans Joerg Stalder argued in court on Tuesday that the three — two Italians and a Swiss — are “criminal tourists” who tried to smuggle explosives into Switzerland to carry out their eco-terror attack. Experts testified at the hearing that the planned combination of fuels and explosive gel could have been deadly.

The three, identified as 35-year-old Costantino Alfonso Ragusa, his 29-year-old wife Silvia Ragusa Guerini and their 26-year-old Swiss friend Luca Cristos Bernasconi, were charged with “planning an incendiary attack on a nanotechnology centre under construction”, and are being tried by Switzerland’s top criminal court.

The three have already served 15 months of their three year jail sentences.

My most recent posting on this topic was July 19, 2011 and I also posted about this near the time of the attempted bombing, April 26, 2010.