ROME - The separatist group whose members staged a spectacular armed protest in Venice two days ago said yesterday that the Italian state had suffered "a glorious demonstrative defeat".
A statement sent to the national news agency Ansa described central government in Rome as an "occupying regime from the south" and said the Venetian Liberation Army would carry out more protest actions "in the forms, times and places considered most opportune".
Police commandos stormed the campanile in the lagoon city's St Mark's Square on Friday, arresting eight separatists who had occupied it for some five hours.