Absurd rave trial drags on in Italy

So you went to a party when you were a student four years ago - and now you're having to sit in a court room facing prosecution as a result. This is the absurd situation in Italy, where the court room in Varese was packed out last month for the latest hearing for 113 defendants charged in relation to a party held at Caldè near Lake Maggiore in June 2006.

Around 500 people, many of them students, attended an unauthorised 'rave party' held in and around old furnace buildings on private land near the shores of the lake. The police set up roadblocks and stopped people as they were leaving the party, as a result of which the 113 were charged with complicity in aggravated invasion (trespass) of the land.

Local papers have queried the use of the court room associated with Mafia trials, noting that in 'this case this case, however, the defendants are normal young people of Varese and surroundings. The trial has been adjourned again until June 2010.

Source: VarezieNotizie, 26 February 2010 ; Varese Laghi 25 February 2010.