1984
December 23, San Benedetto Val di Sambro (BO)
The Rapido 904 Massacre or Christmas Massacre
The Victims
– Giovanbattista Altobelli, 51 years old, worker
– Anna Maria Brandi, 26 years old, university student
– Angela De Simone Calvanese, 33 years old, teacher
– Susanna Cavalli, 22 years old, university student
– Lucia Cerrato, 66 years old, retiree
– Anna De Simone, schoolgirl
– Giovanni De Simone, 4 years old
– Nicola De Simone, 40 years old, worker
– Pier Francesco Leoni, 23 years old, university student
– Luisella Matarazzo, 25 years old, university student
– Carmine Moccia, 30 years old, worker
– Valeria Moratello, 22 years old, university student
– Maria Luigia Morini, 45 years old, child care worker
– Federica Taglialatela, 12 years old, student
– Gioacchino Taglialatela, 50 years old, surveyor
– Abramo Vastarella, 29 years old, carpenter
The Attack
The Rapido 904 Massacre, also known as the Christmas Massacre, is the name given to a bombing that occurred on December 23, 1984, in the Great Apennine Tunnel, just after the Vernio station, targeting train no. 904, traveling from Naples to Milan. The attack was a horrific replica of the one carried out by neo-fascist terrorism in 1974 against the Italicus train. Due to the organizational methods and individuals involved, the Stragi Commission has indicated it as a precursor to the mafia war of the early 1980s.
Beyond the specific motivations, the responsibility for the act lies with the Sicilian Mafia, Cosa Nostra. Particularly, the Pellegrino Report, in concluding the chapter titled “The Subversive Crossroads and the Train 904 Massacre,” draws a parallel between the dynamics, protagonists, and objectives of the two Bologna massacres (1980) and the Rapido 904 (1984). It states that: “The contexts, probably different, in which the two massacres took place and the broader strategic designs they served remain not fully clarified. In this perspective, the hypothesis advanced in the judiciary regarding the Train 904 massacre, that it was a reaction by Cosa Nostra to the collaboration of historical informants like Buscetta and Contorno, is appreciable but not fully satisfying. It was an attempt by the criminal association to reinforce institutional ties that seemed to be weakening or were being questioned by the emergence of a new phase, which was disrupting an old armistice pact. In this perspective, the 1984 Christmas massacre seems to herald a subsequent phase that includes events like the Capaci and Via D’Amelio massacres and the summer 1993 bombings.”
The attack took place on Sunday, December 23, 1984, the weekend before Christmas. The train, pulled by the E.444.030 locomotive, was full of passengers returning home or visiting relatives for the holidays. Around 7:08 PM, the train was ripped apart by a violent explosion while traveling on the Direttissima heading north, inside the Great Apennine Tunnel, near Vernio, where the railway runs straight and trains typically exceed speeds of 150 km/h. The detonation was caused by a remote-controlled explosive device placed on a luggage rack in the corridor of the 9th second-class car, mid-train. The bomb had been placed on the train during its stop at Florence Santa Maria Novella station.
Unlike the Italicus case, this time the attackers waited for the vehicle to enter the tunnel to maximize the effect of the detonation: the explosion, occurring almost halfway through the tunnel, caused a violent air displacement that shattered all the windows and doors. The explosion resulted in 15 deaths and 267 injuries. Subsequently, the death toll rose to 16 due to the trauma. The emergency brake was activated, and the train stopped about 8 km from the southern entrance and 10 from the northern entrance. The passengers were terrified, and this was compounded by the cold of the Apennine winter. The conductor, Gian Claudio Bianconcini, who was on his last service trip and, despite being injured himself, survived the explosion and called for help using a service phone in the tunnel.
Prime Minister Bettino Craxi bitterly remarked, “They wanted to stain this Christmas with blood,” while President of the Republic Sandro Pertini, in his final year-end message, commented, “We have had five massacres, all bearing the same mark of infamy, and the responsible parties have not yet been brought to justice. The relatives of the victims, the Italian people do not demand revenge, as some have insinuated, but they demand justice.” The Head of State added that the intelligence services had been renewed: “I have been told that there are very capable, honest people. The old secret services were tainted by the P2, this criminal association. Well, the new secret services must investigate, they must not tire of investigating, they must not stop investigating in Italy, they must also go abroad, because probably the central headquarters of these terrorists are abroad.”
Giorgio Bocca, commenting on the massacre, wrote: “What has happened new in the Italian Republic in these recent years and months? The democratic machine has slowly started working again. The coup plotters of the P2, the coup plotters’ bankrupts of Sindona, the thieving generals like Giudice, the secret service heads ready for deviations, have all ended up in jail. Hard blows have been dealt to the mafia and the camorra. In essence, the democratic state has severely hit all the real and potential allies of the repressive apparatus. And this begins to be a reason, if not demonstrable mathematically, certainly credible at the level of repressive policy. At the bottom of all these underground stories, there is always an organizational reason. The apparatus that is ‘bureaucratically’ entrusted with maintaining the ‘status quo,’ if it feels the tools of its control and power collapsing around it, can react in its way: fierce, irrational but not devoid of tragic effects.”
Investigations
The investigations immediately focused on two main leads: one in Naples and the other in Rome. The Naples lead originated from the forewarning of the massacre given by Carmine Esposito (an “informant” who had recently spent a short period in detention) a few days before the slaughter at the Naples police headquarters; it pointed towards the Camorra clan of Giuseppe Misso and towards Massimo Abbatangelo, a member of the Italian Social Movement (MSI). The Roman lead was initiated by the arrest of Guido Cercola, the right-hand man in Rome of the mafia boss Giuseppe Calò. This was followed by the discovery in the house of Franco D’Agostino (a tenant and associate of Cercola) of two radio-electric devices capable of triggering an explosion, compatible with those used in the massacre. Additionally, in a farmhouse belonging to Cercola near Poggio San Lorenzo, near Rieti, two blocks of Semtex H explosive (one reduced by about one kilogram), six charges of TNT (one missing 40 grams), and nine detonators were found. Expert analysis conducted first in Rome and then in Florence demonstrated that this type of material was compatible with that used in the train bombing. Connections between Cercola and a German, Friedrich Schaudinn, who was allegedly tasked with producing the devices used in the bombing and found by the police at Cercola’s residence, also emerged.
In the following months, two members of the Misso clan began to cooperate with justice: the first was Lucio Luongo, who led investigators to the group’s arsenal; another band member already detained, Mario Ferraiuolo, began to collaborate, confirming that the clan, in addition to its activities of common criminality, also operated for political purposes. He asserted that meetings had been held with Abbatangelo, who in early December 1984 allegedly delivered weapons, detonators, and a closed package containing explosives to Misso, brought to Rome by Luongo a week before Christmas; claims later confirmed by Luongo.
In October 1985, Calò was indicted as the mastermind of the massacre, while another 22 arrest warrants were issued for Misso and his gang for various crimes, including massacre and illegal possession of explosives. Among those sought was Gerlando Alberti Jr (namesake nephew of Sicilian mafia boss Gerlando Alberti), linked to Calò’s family but “transplanted” into the Misso clan, and considered by the investigations as a connecting element between the two organizations for the execution of the massacre.
On January 9, 1986, Public Prosecutor Pier Luigi Vigna formally charged Calò and Cercola with carrying out the massacre:
“with the practical aim of diverting the attention of the institutional apparatus from the struggle against the emerging centers of organized crime which at that time were undergoing a decisive offensive by the police and judiciary to rebrand terrorism as the only real enemy against which the state needed to focus all its fight.”
Several lines of connection emerged between Calò, Cosa Nostra, the Camorra, neo-fascist terrorist circles, P2, and the Banda della Magliana: these relationships were clarified by various individuals close to these environments, including Cristiano and Valerio Fioravanti, Massimo Carminati, and Walter Sordi. Depositions explaining the links between these three crime environments emerged at the mega-trial of November 8, 1985, before examining magistrate Giovanni Falcone.
In 1988, on the eve of the first-degree trial, one of the main defendants, Friedrich Schaudinn – considered the mastermind of the massacre – fled from house arrest and found refuge in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1993, in an interview for the television program “Il rosso e il nero” by Michele Santoro, Schaudinn confessed to having been helped to flee abroad by secret service officials.
Criminal Responsibility
The Court of Assizes of Florence, on February 25, 1989, sentenced Giuseppe Calò, Guido Cercola, and other defendants linked to the Misso Camorra clan (Alfonso Galeota, Giulio Pirozzi, and Giuseppe Misso, known as “the boss of Rione Sanità”), with the charge of massacre, to life imprisonment. Additionally, Franco D’Agostino was sentenced to 28 years in prison, Schaudinn to 25 years, and other defendants in the trial were convicted of armed gang offenses.
The second trial was held by the Court of Appeal of Florence, chaired by Judge Giulio Catelani, with a judgment issued on March 15, 1990. The life sentences for Calò and Cercola were confirmed, while D’Agostino’s sentence was reduced from 28 to 24 years. Misso, Pirozzi, and Galeota were instead acquitted of the charge of massacre, but convicted of illegal possession of explosives. The German Schaudinn was acquitted of the charge of armed gang, but his sentence for massacre was confirmed and reduced to 22 years.
On March 5, 1991, the first criminal section of the Court of Cassation, chaired by Judge Corrado Carnevale, annulled the sentences on appeal, confirming the acquittals of Galeota, Misso, and Pirozzi. Deputy Prosecutor General Antonino Scopelliti opposed this and warned the judges against allowing the impunity of the crime to prevail. The Court of Cassation ordered a retrial, before another section of the Court of Appeal of Florence. On March 14, 1992, the Court confirmed life imprisonment for Calò and Cercola, sentenced D’Agostino to 24 years and Schaudinn to 22 years. Misso was sentenced to 3 years for possession of explosives, while the sentences of Galeota and Pirozzi were reduced to 1 year and 6 months each.
On the same day, Galeota and Pirozzi, along with Rita Casolaro and Giuseppe Misso’s wife, Assunta Sarno, were returning to Naples when, during the journey, they encountered an ambush: their car (a Ford Fiesta XR2) was rammed and forced off the road by some Camorra killers who were following them on the A1 motorway, near the Afragola-Acerra exit, on the outskirts of Naples. The firearms of the killers left the lifeless bodies of Galeota and Sarno on the ground, the latter slain with a gunshot to the mouth. Only Giulio Pirozzi and his wife miraculously survived what was a real slaughter of the Camorra, also thanks to the arrival of a police car traveling in the opposite direction, which prevented the killers from completing the job. Pirozzi, although seriously injured, also survived by pretending to be dead during the shooting. The car used by the assassins, a Lancia Delta HF, was later abandoned near Capodichino airport and set on fire.
The fifth criminal section of the Court of Cassation, on November 24, 1992, confirmed the sentence recognizing the “terrorist-mafioso” motive of the attack.
During the trial, the position of Massimo Abbatangelo, a deputy of the MSI, was separated because the Chamber of Deputies had granted permission to proceed, but not for arrest. After being sentenced to life imprisonment in the first trial, on February 18, 1994, the Court of Appeal of Florence acquitted the MSI parliamentarian of the charge of massacre, but sentenced him to 6 years in prison for delivering explosives to Giuseppe Misso in the spring of 1984. The families of the victims appealed to the Court of Cassation against this sentence, but lost and had to pay the court costs.
In October 1993, during a hearing before the Stragi Commission chaired by Libero Gualtieri, Pippo Calò proclaimed himself innocent of the Rapido 904 massacre and expressed interest in reopening the trial, hinting at wanting to make “important” statements. He ambiguously stated that Pier Luigi Vigna – the prosecutor of the Florence Prosecutor’s Office who had him convicted – “was bad” and “that the mafia had nothing to do with that massacre: draw your own conclusions and ask who let Schaudinn escape.”
Guido Cercola committed suicide in Sulmona prison on January 3, 2005, by suffocating himself with shoelaces. Found agonizing in his cell, he died during transport to the hospital.
On April 27, 2011, the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of Naples issued a detention order against mafia boss Salvatore Riina for the massacre, specifying that Riina was considered the mastermind. On November 25, 2014, a trial opened in Florence. According to the Naples DDA, the quantity of Semtex H used for the Rapido 904 massacre was purchased by Cosa Nostra in the early 1980s; part of it was also used in other attacks attributed to Riina, such as the via d’Amelio massacre (in which judge Paolo Borsellino and five bodyguards were killed), the Capaci massacre (in which Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo, and three bodyguards were killed), and the 1993 massacres in Rome, Milan, and Florence, as well as the failed attacks on Addaura and the Olimpico Stadium in Rome. Another part of this type of explosive was seized by the Palermo DIA in February 1996 from the arsenal-bunker of Giovanni Brusca discovered in San Giuseppe Jato. Therefore, the Rapido massacre was part of Riina’s strategic plan to portray the attack as a political act and as a response to the maxiprocesso against Cosa Nostra.
On April 14, 2015, Riina was then acquitted for lack of evidence.