Genoa, 12 June (AKI) - The trial of two anarchists charged with kneecapping Italian nuclear power chief Roberto Adinolfi will open in the northwestern port city of Genoa on 5 July, a judge said on Wednesday.

Alfredo Cospito abnd Nicola Gai are accused of grievous bodily harm compounded by terrorist motive, theft and possessing illegal arms.

They were arrested in September last year on suspicion of shooting Adinolfi in the leg as he left his home on 7 May 2012 in a leafy suburb of Genoa to go to work. He was targeted by two masked gunmen aboard a motorbike.

Adolfini was hospitalised after the attack and had to undergo surgery to his leg.

Cospito and Gai belong to a Greek-linked Italian anarchist group, the Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), whose previously unknown Olga cell claimed the shooting of Adinolfi.

FAI also threatened future attacks on state companies and said it was responsible for a package bomb found outside the Greek embassy in Rome and defused in December 2010.

Gai and Cospito were arrested on evidence from surveillance cameras, wiretaps and from analysis of a hand-written leaflet claiming responsibility for the attack, investigators said.

The leaflet called Adolfini a "grey assassin", blaming him and and the former conservative Italian government for trying to reintroduce nuclear power in Italy