Genoa protesters penned up and batoned

New Zealand students protesting at the G8 summit in Genoa claim they were beaten by police with batons and menaced with guns as they tried to flee the area in terror.

Eva Neitzert and Jeremy Anderson, both 20-year-old former Auckland University students now staying in Hamburg, arrived in Genoa with a busload of German activists.

The following morning, they were marching peacefully with a handful of protesters and organisers wearing marshals' T-shirts when wagons carrying police drove by.

One wagon with a police officer standing through the sunroof carrying a gun pulled up next to the group.

"He was waving it around aiming it at people. We didn't know if it was loaded with plastic bullets, so we ran," said Ms Neitzert.

She said police with batons and shields emerged from sidestreets.

She was hit on the head once with a bare hand and Mr Anderson was batoned over the head and on his back and kicked with a boot. He was concussed and his back was bruised.

The group was split up and found that police had blocked all the streets leading away from the protest, leaving them unable to get out.

Ms Neitzert and other members of the group were herded into a police wagon then held in a police station for five hours. On her release, a policewoman warned her that there had been a death in Genoa and to leave immediately.

Former Wellington journalist Sam Buchanan, who was arrested in Genoa, has a suspected broken hand and cuts and bruises, apparently after being batoned by police, his brother Joe said yesterday.

Sam Buchanan was resting with friends in London after being deported from Italy overnight.

Joe Buchanan said he found out about the injuries when he spoke to his brother yesterday morning.

His brother had been held down and hit with batons by three police officers in a raid on protest groups' headquarters. When he was arrested he was taken into a basement.

"I think he was beaten around a bit there," said Joe Buchanan, of Dunedin.

Sam Buchanan, with 92 other protesters arrested in the incident, was held in prison without access to a lawyer or a New Zealand diplomat until just prior to his appearance before a magistrate.

He had to pay for the deportation himself, but had lost his passport, his wallet and all his belongings, Joe Buchanan said.

His brother had managed to talk his way into Britain without a passport.

- STAFF REPORTER, NZPA