Commandos Storm Venice Landmark, Arrest Separatists

VENICE — Police stormed the bell tower in St. Mark’s Square on Friday and arrested eight separatists who occupied it in an armed protest that put concern about secession back on Italy’s political agenda.

A team of 24 masked paramilitary police commandos ended the protest about five hours after the group of young men, some dressed in combat fatigues, broke into one of Venice’s best-known landmarks.

Police said the group commandeered a ferry shortly after midnight to take them, a six-wheeled armored vehicle they had built themselves and a camper down the Grand Canal to St. Mark’s Square, a magnet for tourists.

The group had raised a banner on the tower bearing the symbol of the Lion of St. Mark and issued a statement describing themselves as soldiers of the “Most Serene Republic of Venice.”

The protesters face charges including membership in an armed band, subversion, kidnapping and illegal possession of weapons.

Police linked them to a shadowy group that has interrupted TV news for two months with pirate broadcasts warning of a “spectacular action” to mark next Monday’s 200th anniversary of the fall of the Republic of Venice.

Venice was for centuries a powerful independent entity with territories stretching down the Adriatic and into the Middle East. It fell on May 12, 1797, when Napoleon’s forces entered the city.