1980
December 1st, Rome
Giuseppe Furci, 54 years old, Health Director of the Regina Coeli Prison
On December 1st, 1980, a commando assassinated Giuseppe Furci, health director of the medical center at the Regina Coeli penitentiary in Rome. The ambush took place outside his home, with two gunshot wounds to the back of the head. The Red Brigades claimed responsibility for the murder, but investigators doubted it: the phone call was too long and detailed, quite different from the brief communications typical of the Red Brigades. On October 5th, 1980, he had already survived an attack: a rudimentary but powerful explosive device had been placed outside his office door. The fuse had extinguished before reaching the explosive. He was a man with a strong backbone. He had more than once denied the hospital transfer to “Lallo lo zoppo,” the well-known boss of the Roman underworld, Laudavino De Santis, as well as clashed with drug addicts. He refused to administer methadone and morphine.
Today, the Association of Victims of Memory and the Archives Network recognize him as a “victim of terrorism.” His profile appears in the volume edited by the Quirinale on the occasion of the establishment of the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism. The judicial proceedings had a discordant outcome. Several years later, De Santis confessed to the murder but was acquitted on appeal due to insufficient evidence.
Investigators’ doubts about the claim

An article in La Stampa on December 3rd, 1980, already expressed doubts about the responsibility of the Red Brigades:
“Here are the Red Brigades. We killed Dr. Furci of Rome. We know him well because he was previously in Milan. Now, the first will be Bettino Craxi because he had one of our comrades arrested.”
This was the message that a woman, speaking with a northern accent, delivered shortly after two in the morning to the switchboard operator at the Milan office of L’Unità. Convinced of the political motive behind the murder of the prison infirmary director at Regina Coeli, investigators had many doubts about the authenticity of this phone call. They pointed out that the Red Brigades had never before revealed what their next target would be in their communications. The investigation was at a standstill. Throughout the day, in the course of a major operation that led, among other things, to the arrest of numerous members of the Formazioni Comuniste Combattenti, Carabinieri and Digos agents searched the homes of extremists for clues to shed light on the crime.
Next to the supine body in the entrance hall of 115 Via Bartolomeo Gosio, fragments of the two bullets that killed the doctor at Regina Coeli were found. A preliminary examination indicated they were .38 caliber, fired from a close-range revolver. “We are following all leads,” said Achille Gallucci, Chief Prosecutor of the Republic of Rome, yesterday morning. “We still don’t know who could have committed the crime and why.”
“The doctor at Regina Coeli,” said a Digos official, “was an easy target for terrorists. He always moved without a bodyguard, and his habits were known to all. Although he had no particular power, he was sufficiently symbolic.”
Who was Giuseppe Furci?
Why did he become a target in the sights of terrorists? Because of the role he held, health director for six years at the medical center of Regina Coeli, he was a man who worked within the prison structure and, for this reason alone, was among the potential targets for a political attack.
As a doctor in the Roman prison, he worked closely with detainees. It was his responsibility to draft medical records on their health conditions. His reports guided decisions by the prison director and magistrates regarding the granting of permissions and hospital stays in civilian medical facilities. However, even those who often fought for the rights of detainees did not criticize his way of working.
The drug addict lead
It appears that the inmates of Regina Coeli seldom complained about him, and it also seems that his investigations were always timely and correct. But we know that this has never been a merit in the eyes of terrorists.
In their mad mindset, a man who works diligently is all the more to be attacked because he lends credibility to the structures of the State. However, investigators do not exclude — indeed, they follow with interest — the lead of murder matured in the environment of drug addicts. Dr. Furci was also interested in the care and assistance of drug addicts and, it seems, was against the use of methadone in prison to treat heroin victims. He also spoke out against the administration of morphine. Harsh accusations were made against him for this a few months ago, and it was thought that a retaliation by the world of drug addicts was behind the powerful unexploded device placed in front of his private studio door on Via Giulio Romano 11, near Piazza del Popolo, last October.
The claim of Walter Alasia
The lead that investigators are trying to delve deeper into remains that of Maurizio Jannelli. The terrorist militant in the Red Brigades captured in Rome on Viale Libya on November 22nd after a shootout with agents. On that occasion, a accomplice, however, managed to lose his tracks. Late in the evening, even the “Walter Alasia column” claimed the killing of the. even if However Did Was- Proclamation Made