1978

09 May, Rome
Aldo Moro, 61 years old, statesman

THE AMBUAY

Shortly before 9 a.m. on March 16, 1978, Moro left his house and got into a blue Fiat with two members of the escort. Behind his car was another car, a white Alfetta with the other men on board who were part of his protection. The amust tense by the Brs snapped when the car in which Moro was traveling entered Via Fani. The Dc president’s car slammed into a Fiat 128 that had cut his way. In a few seconds the terrorist commando jumped out in front of the “Olivetti” bar shooting at the escort’s car killing agents Giulio Rivera and Raffaele Iozzino on the spot. Deputy Brigadier Francesco Zizzi lost his life shortly after, at the Gemelli hospital. The dopped Domenico Ricci and Marshal Oreste Leonardi who were in Moro’s car also died.

THE CLAIM

The president of the Dc was instead captured by the brigadists. The Fiat used for the ambed was found later and exactly an hour later, at 10 o’clock, the terrorist group claimed the attack: ‘Attack on the heart of the state’.

THE PRISON

After the kidnapping, Aldo Moro was taken to what will later be called ‘the prison of the people’. In the trials that followed the capture of the brigadists, it turned out that this ‘prison of the people’ was the apartment owned by Anna Laura Braghetti, in via Camillo Montalcini 8, also in Rome. In those 55 days, the politician was watched by several members of the Br, in particular by Prospero Gallinari who, being already wanted, remained throughout the kidnapping together with the statesman and was considered the real jailer of Aldo Moro.

However, according to the magistrate Carlo Alfredo Moro, brother of the former president Dc, the last den in which Moro was hidden was not the one in Via Montalcini, but another located near a seaside resort. The deduction comes from the sand found on the body and on the car, but also from some inconsistencies during the depositions of the brigadists. It has never been ascertained if other lairs were used (such as the one in the Balduina area)

THE PRESS RELEASES

From March 16, 1978 to May 9 of the same year, the Red Brigades issued nine communiqués. The terrorist group used these letters to explain the reasons for the kidnapping but also to try to enter into a negotiation with the state

THE LETTERS

In his 55 days of imprisonment, Aldo Moro wrote 86 letters. The recipients were many: from the most important exponents of his party, the Dc, to the family. However, there was no shortage of letters sent to the main newspapers and to the then Pope Paul VI. On April 22, the Holy Father turned with a public appeal with which he pleaded ‘on his knees’ the ‘men of the Red Brigades’ to free the prisoner ‘without conditions’.

THE FIRMNESS OF THE GOVERNMENT

Of the 86 letters sent, only some arrived at their destination, others were never delivered and were later found in the den of Via Monte Nevoso. It was precisely through these letters that Moro tried to open a negotiation with his party colleagues and with the highest offices of the state. The government presided over by Giulio Andreotti (pictured), supported by the Pci, did not want to give in to the terrorists, nor negotiate. The statesman, in a letter addressed to the leaders of the Dc, his party, writes: “My blood will fall on you”

THE KILLING

“As for our proposal for an exchange of political prisoners for the sentence to be suspended and Aldo Moro to be released, we only need to register the clear rejection of the DC. We therefore conclude the battle that began on March 16, carrying out the sentence to which Aldo Moro was sentenced.” With these words, in the ninth and last communiqué, the Red Brigades put an end to the kidnapping, killing Moro with a rush of bullets in his chest

THE FIND

After the murder, the car with his body was left parked in Via Caetani, in Rome, symbolically halfway between the headquarters of the Dc and that of the Pci. The communication of the crime was given by the brigadier Valerio Morucci with a phone call to Professor Francesco Tritto, one of Moro’s assistants. The terrorist asked Tritto, ‘fulfilling the last wishes of the president’, to immediately communicate to the family that ‘the body of the president was in the trunk of a red Renault 4, in via Caetani’.

Moro’s kidnapping was one of the most tragic points of the Lead Years in Italy. The death of the statesman marked the end of the so-called ‘historical compromise’, the rapprochement between Dc and Pci, of which Moro had been one of the great supporters.

THE TRIALS AND THE CONVICTIONS

A few days after the epilogue of the tragedy there were the first arrests of brigadists involved in the ambish of Via Fani and the killing of Moro. Enrico Triaca, a printer who had made himself available to Mario Moretti, then Valerio Morucci and Adriana Faranda, were arrested.

On January 24, 1983, the Court of Assizes of Rome, presided over by Judge Severino Santiapichi, at the end of a nine-month trial that brought together the Moro-uno and Moro-bis investigations completed by the investigating judges Ferdinando Imposimato and Rosario Priore, inflicted 32 life sentences and 316 years in prison on 63 defendants; four acquittals and three amnesties were also decided. The rules of law that granted favorable treatment to the collaborators of justice were applied and some mitigating to the dissociated were recognized. On March 14, 1985, in the appeal process, the judges gave greater value to the dissociation (choice made by Adriana Faranda and Valerio Morucci) by canceling 10 life sentences and reducing the sentence to some defendants. A few months later, on November 14, the Supreme Court substantially confirmed the appeal judgment.

In the following years three new trials were celebrated (Moro-ter, Moro-quater and Moro-quinquies) that condemned other brigadists for their involvement in subversive actions carried out in Rome until 1982 and in some implications of the Moro case.

The following judgments were issued against the fifteen brigadists directly involved in the affair:

Rita Algranati: the last to be captured among the terrorists involved in the Moro case, in Cairo in 2004, is serving a life sentence. It was the ‘relayer’ of the brigadist commando in via Fani.

Barbara Balzerani: Captured in 1985 and sentenced to life imprisonment, she obtained probation in 2006. In via Fani he guarded the intersection with via Stresa armed with a CZ Scorpion, a weapon that will kill Aldo Moro on May 9. During the kidnapping he occupied the base in via Gradoli 96 in which he lived with Mario Moretti.

Franco Bonisoli: captured at the base of via Monte Nevoso 8 in Milan on 1º October 1978, he was sentenced to life imprisonment but later obtained in semi-freedom. In via Fani he shot on the escort of Moro and at the conclusion of the kidnapping he brought to the lair of Milan the memorial and the letters of the statesman, found in a first tranche at the same time as his arrest and in a second tranche on October 8, 1990.

Anna Laura Braghetti: arrested in 1980, sentenced to life imprisonment, she has been released on parole since 2002. During the kidnapping he was not yet in hiding: he was the owner and the ‘official’ tenant, together with Germano Maccari, of the apartment in via Montalcini 8 in Rome, still the only confirmed prison of Moro.

Alessio Casimirri: He fled to Nicaragua, where he runs a restaurant, he is the only one who has never been arrested either for the Moro case or for other crimes. In via Fani he garrisoned with Alvaro Lojacono the upper part of the road.

Raimondo Etro: Captured in 1996, he was sentenced to 24 years and 6 months, then reduced to 20 years and 6 months, ending his sentence early in 2010. He was not present in Via Fani, but he was the keeper of the weapons used in the massacre.

Adriana Faranda: Arrested in 1979, she was released in 1994 after dissociating herself from the armed struggle. His presence in via Fani has not been ascertained in court. He was, together with Valerio Morucci, the ‘postman’ of the Moro kidnapping.

Raffaele Fiore: captured in 1979 and sentenced to life imprisonment, he obtained parole in 1997. In via Fani he fired on the escort of Moro, even though his machine gun jammed almost immediately.

Prospero Gallinari: at the time of the Moro case already a fugitive for the kidnapping of Judge Mario Sossi, he was captured in 1979. From 1994 to 2007 he obtained a suspension of his sentence for health reasons, obtaining house arrest. He passed away on January 14, 2013. In via Fani he shot on Moro’s escort and during the kidnapping he was a refugee in the brigadier’s lair of via Montalcini 8, the only Moro prison ascertained in court.

Maurizio Iannelli: captured in 1980 and sentenced to two life sentences, obtained probation in 2003. Later he collaborated as a director on various Rai programs (Amore criminale, Sopravvissute).

Alvaro Lojacono: also involved in the murders of Miki Mantakas and Girolamo Tartaglione, in 1980 he expatriated to Switzerland (his mother’s country of origin), where in 1986 he obtained citizenship. As Swiss law does not provide for extradition for his citizens, he was never extradited to Italy, even though he served 11 years in Swiss prison (for the murder of Tartaglione alone). In via Fani he guarded the upper part of the road with Alessio Casimirri and with him he was on the car that he blocked from behind the column of cars with Moro and his escort on board, just before the massacre.

Germano Maccari: arrested only in 1993, released for the period of time and then rearrested after admitting his involvement in the kidnapping, is sentenced to 30 years, then reduced to 26, in the last trial held in the Moro case. He died of a brain aneurysm in Rebibbia Prison on August 25, 2001. Together with Anna Laura Braghetti he was the ‘official’ tenant of the apartment in via Montalcini 8, the only prison in Moro so far ascertained, under the false name of ‘engineer Luigi Altobelli’.

Mario Moretti: captured in 1981 and sentenced to six life sentences. In 1994 he obtained semi-freedom and later worked in a computer science cooperative that also offered advice to the regional administration of Lombardy. Representative of the Executive Committee of the Red Brigades at the Roman column, in addition to directing the entire operation and carrying out inspections shortly before the ambush, in via Fani he was at the helm of the Fiat 128 with the “diplomatic body” that blocked the procession of Moro’s cars and the escort by starting the ambush. Despite some eyewitnesses, it has not been established in court that he shot. During the seizure he occupied with Barbara Balzerani the base in via Gradoli 96 and went to interrogate Moro at the place of his detention and periodically in Florence and Rapallo for meetings with the Executive Committee of the BR. Some time after the trial he also confessed to having been the only material executor of Moro’s murder thus exonerating, from a moral and non-judicial point of view, Prospero Gallinari who had previously been accused and convicted of it.

Valerio Morucci: arrested in 1979, he was sentenced to 30 years after dissociating himself from the armed struggle. Released in 1994, he later dealt with computer science, like Moretti. In via Fani he fired on Moro’s backing and during the kidnapping he was the “postman” of the Red Brigades together with his partner Adriana Faranda, in addition to making almost all the phone calls related to the seizure, including the last one in which he communicated to Franco Tritto the location of Moro’s body.

Bruno Seghetti: captured in 1980 and sentenced to life imprisonment, he was admitted to external work in April 1995 and then obtained semi-liberty in 1999, revoked in 2001 following some irregularities, for which he returned to prison. He also worked for Prospero Gallinari’s December 32 cooperative. In via Fani he was driving the car with which Moro was taken away after the ambush.