“This trial is about words and, yes, freedom of speech,” prize-winning author Erri De Luca told www.i-italy.org in a telephone interview. “I am incriminated because of phrases I had said in public.” De Luca, 65, was speaking at the conclusion of the first hearing today before a court in Turin, where he is on trial for saying that to “sabotage” work on a 35-mile tunnel for a high-speed train link between France and Italy is legitimate.