1980

March 18, Rome
Girolamo Minervini, 60 years old, magistrate and Director General of the Institutes of Prevention and Punishment

“We have executed Girolamo Minervini. A statement will follow. This is the Red Brigades.” With these few words, sent to Ansa and the newspaper “La Repubblica,” the Red Brigades’ “Roman column” claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack on the magistrate, born in Molfetta, Puglia, in 1919. Investigations and the trial would later reveal that the plan had been ready for some time. The brigadists, after tailing Minervini for several days, targeted bus 99, which he took every morning to get to work.
It was 8:30 AM on March 18, 1980; after four stops, the bus reached the stop on Via Ruggero di Lauria. The vehicle slowed down, the doors were not yet open. It was the moment for action. The terrorist assigned to fire drew a silenced pistol, aimed it at the magistrate, and shot. Passengers screamed and fled toward the exits; the assassin lost control and fired into the crowd, injuring some. Just a month earlier, on February 18, 1980, at La Sapienza, Vittorio Bachelet, the Vice President of the CSM, had been killed.
Girolamo Minervini entered the judiciary in 1943. From 1947 to 1956, he was assigned to the Ministry of Justice, General Directorate of the Institutes of Prevention and Punishment. He then moved to the Attorney General’s Office of the Court of Cassation. In 1968, he was appointed magistrate secretary at the Superior Council of the Judiciary. In 1973, after serving briefly at the Court of Appeal in Rome, he returned to the Ministry of Justice as head of the secretariat of the General Directorate of the Institutes of Prevention and Punishment. He was editor of the journal “Rassegna studi penitenziari,” secretary of the Criminology section of the National Center for Social Prevention and Defense, and co-director of “Giustizia e Costituzione.” On March 17, the day before his death, he became Director General of the Institutes of Prevention and Punishment.