1975

June 13, Reggio Emilia
Alceste Campanile, 22 years old, student

“On the night of 12 June 1975, the young Lotta Continua exponent Alceste Campanile was shot dead with two shots. I knew him well. He was from Reggio Emilia and a student, like me, at the University of Bologna. We had played guitar together a few times, with a mutual friend. In some suburban dive, both immersed up to their necks in music and politics. He had just returned from an exam, which he passed brilliantly, he had left his university booklet under the door of his house and had headed towards a nightclub in Montecchio, between Parma and Reggio, very popular with young people. His body was found in a country road halfway between Sant’Ilario and Montecchio.
Alceste had played in the Youth Front, a far-right organisation, before joining Lotta Continua and the first sensation that pervaded us was that of the consummation of a ferocious fascist-style revenge towards a boy accused of treason. In the afternoon, a large demonstration was held, promoted by the anti-fascist committee, in which we young socialists fought, opposing the communists on this, so that the exponents of Lotta continua could also speak. On the day of the funeral, tens of thousands of Lotta Continua militants, with Adriano Sofri on the front line, held an impressive demonstration, however also praising the armed struggle.
Since then the judiciary has come across a wall of silence and suspicion, mainly animated by Alceste’s father, which was oriented towards the opposite side to that expected. In particular, in the extremist circles of Bologna, a recurring injunction to be careful was reported to the former Lotta continua leader Marco Boato, it was said, “otherwise you will end up like Alceste Campanile”. Responsibilities were sought especially in that area of armed extremism which was needed for the supervision of Lotta Continua, a close relationship was also hypothesized between the kidnapping and the Saronio and Alceste crimes. It was declared that part of the money would have passed through Reggio and Alceste itself.
Until 1999, no repentant person ever had something concrete to declare about the Campanile crime, unlike all the others. A very particular murder was therefore thought of. Then, precisely in 1999, Paolo Bellini, involved in mafia crimes, a far-right element, in cahoots with members of the deviant secret services, fled to Brazil and returned to Italy under a false name, after his arrest in a well-known restaurant in Reggio Emilia. , opened the case by confessing that it was he, together with one of his companions from the National Avant-garde, who killed Bellini on the orders of a third party, a well-known leader of the National Avant-garde. The motive once again became that of betrayal and that of an unsuccessful attack that Campanile allegedly plotted against the Bellinis’ home was added.
However, the other two implicated by Bellini were acquitted. Therefore, there remains an incomplete truth about him given that the guns that were fired were two. Assuming that Bellini told the truth, given that he did not even have to serve a sentence for the Campanile crime, because the 22-year period of the trial completed in 2007 has expired, and given that he had committed eight or nine crimes, certified and therefore even the years imposed would not have weighed down his position too much, many questions still remain.