A court found 15 Italian officials guilty of abusing protesters in detention after violent demonstrations at the 2001 Group of Eight summit in Genoa, lawyers said.

Judges in the northern Italian port city handed down sentences ranging from a few months to five years in jail for the officials, who included doctors, police and corrections officers.

Thirty other officials were cleared of charges, including assault and abuse of authority. The judges in the trial, which opened in 2005, issued the ruling July 14, after hours of closed-door deliberations.

Protesters from Italy, Britain, France, Germany and elsewhere had claimed they were beaten by police, strip-searched, and denied food, phone calls or access to consulates while detained in Genoa's Bolzaneto police garrison during the G-8 summit in July 2001.