1978

September 28, Rome
Ivo Zini, 24 years old, student

The murder of Ivo Zini took place in Rome on September 28, 1978 during the years of lead and saw as a victim the militant of the Italian Communist Party Ivo Zini, killed by a commando that subsequent investigations hypothesized was attributable to the Roman neo-fascist area.

Recently graduated in political science, on the evening of September 28, 1978 he went, as usually did, to the historic Roman section of the PCI of the Alberone in via Appia Nuova 361, to read the copy of the Unit that was displayed on the bulletin board: being passionate about cinema, he wanted to see the programming of the films screened in the various cinemas of the area. He was together with two friends, Vincenzo De Blasio, 28, and Luciano Ludovisi, 30; Ivo, 24, was the youngest. As they read the articles, two individuals with their faces covered in their hands descended from a white Vespa and four shots exploded on the three boys. The speed of the action prevented the three from escaping, Vincenzo and Ivo remained on the ground, while Luciano remained unharmed.

Immediately it was seen that Ivo, shot in the chest, was seriously injured, while for Vincenzo, shot in the wrist and leg, the condition seemed less serious. Taken by ambulance to the San Giovanni hospital, Ivo died there shortly after. Around 23:00 the murderous ambush was claimed by the Revolutionary Armed Nuclei, who assumed the authorship of the gesture with a phone call to the newspaper Il Messaggero. The assassination was perpetrated after the double murder of the two young people Fausto and Iaio of CS Leoncavallo in Milan and Walter Rossi, killed the year before. They were followed by a great mobilization of civil society against neo-fascist violence.

The main indication for this murder, according to statements of the repentant Cristiano Fioravanti (far-right terrorist linked to the revolutionary armed nuclei) who exonerated the two founders Valerio Fioravanti and Alessandro Alibrandi, was to be identified among the fascists who frequented the section of via Siena 8, in which at the time sections from other areas of Rome converged: those of Montagnola, Balduina, via Noto and rione Prati. Precisely from the latter started the investigation, which identified in Mario Corsi, known as Marione, one of the material executors of the murder.

In 1985 Corsi was acquitted for not having committed the fact; the sentence was then overturned on appeal on April 19 with the sentence of 23 years in prison; based on the ruling of the Court of Appeal of Rome, an arrest warrant was issued for Corsi, now a fugitive in London. On 9 November 1987 he was arrested in Rome, by Digos agents, after he had returned a few weeks after his rest in the United Kingdom. On April 9, 1987, the Court of Cassation ordered a new trial for Corsi for the murder of Zini, in which he was acquitted, a sentence then definitively confirmed in 1989.