Carabinieri intervened after intercepting messages in which a pupil at the “Nicotera-Costabile” school allegedly planned to attack his Italian teacher. The case comes amid growing concern over violence against teachers in Italian schools.
The Carabinieri in Lamezia Terme, Calabria, have stopped a 14-year-old boy who allegedly planned to carry out a knife attack on his Italian literature teacher at the “Nicotera-Costabile” comprehensive school, sources said Wednesday.
According to reports, the plan was discussed in a Telegram group, and the boy is said to have hidden a knife in the school toilets in preparation. Carabinieri intercepted the messages and intervened before any attack could take place. During a search of the boy’s home, officers seized his mobile phone along with clothing that matched items seen in photographs he had posted on social media.
Details of the case, first reported by La Gazzetta del Sud, remain strictly confidential, and the exact circumstances are still being established.
Part of a wider pattern of attacks on teachers
The case comes amid a run of attacks and threats against teachers by pupils across Italy. The most recent, the previous Friday, saw a 66-year-old Italian literature teacher pepper-sprayed and stabbed by a 13-year-old boy at a middle school in Rome. The attacker was disarmed by a 13-year-old classmate of Congolese origin before he could inflict further harm.
Investigators have said the boy behind the Rome attack had been viewing violent content online, some of it reportedly originating from Russia. Rome police are working to identify the so-called “instigators” believed to have encouraged the attack.
A note on Telegram
Telegram is often described as harder for investigators to monitor than other platforms, but the picture is more nuanced. Only its optional “Secret Chats” — one-to-one conversations that users must switch on manually — are end-to-end encrypted. Ordinary chats and groups, including the type reportedly used to plan the Lamezia Terme attack, are not.
What has given Telegram its reputation for being difficult to police is less about encryption and more about its historically limited cooperation with law enforcement requests and the ease with which closed groups can be set up. In this case, it was precisely because the group was not end-to-end encrypted that the Carabinieri were able to intercept the messages and act in time.
