1972

07 July, Salerno
Carlo Falvella, 21 years old, student

On 7 July 1972 on the seafront of Salerno, around 7.30 pm, Marini and Giovanni Scariati, both members of anarchist groups, had a first argument with Carlo Falvella and Giovanni Alfinito, both militants of the University Front of National Action, with whom they had accidentally crossed paths .
Scariati then told the police that he had avoided the escalating situation by taking his friend away. After about two hours in via Velia the argument was repeated, but the two anarchists were joined by Francesco Mastrogiovanni (the teacher from Castelnuovo Cilento who died during the Tso regime in the Vallo della Lucania hospital). Marini, who in the meantime had gone home and armed himself with a knife, grabbed the weapon and faced the two MSIs. Falvella, stabbed in the aorta, died shortly afterwards in hospital and Alfinito was instead wounded in the groin.
During the scuffle Mastrogiovanni was also injured in the leg. After the clash the three anarchists fled and remained untraceable, but Marini turned himself in to the police that same evening and was arrested. Marini thus admitted on 9 July 1972: «While I saw Mastrogiovanni standing near a car, in a state of shock, as I know he was emotional, and Gennaro (Scariati) standing a short distance away, defending me from the unknown fascist who was kicking me and punches and his friend, Alfinito, who was hitting Mastrogiovanni… I took out a knife that I had in my pocket and turned to the two, holding the weapon, but without hitting, I said: “Go away!” Since they continued in the attitude described above, I headed towards L’Alfinito, who was hitting Mastrogiovanni not far away: I started hitting him with the knife. Immediately afterwards, while the other young fascist was coming towards me unarmed – I say with a piece of iron in his hand – I hit him with I don’t remember how many blows. The young man remained standing while I, throwing the knife to the ground, ran away into the alleys of Salerno.» Shortly after the murder and confession of Giovanni Marini, Soccorso Rosso Militante organized a campaign aimed at demonstrating Marini’s innocence during which Dario Fò took the front line
At this point, on 25 August 1972, Giovanni Marini corrected his position with a letter from prison: «The truth is that that evening of 7 July, comrade Scariati and I received many provocations which we did not accept. Because we were convinced, as always, of the political emptiness of fights, and because we had noticed the threatening wandering of a team of MSI National Avant-garde fighters at the same bar where I received the shoulder that literally moved me. Even in Via Velia, when the open fascist challenge continued, Scariati and I walked forward without responding, waiting for their plan to come true. And many meters away, only when I didn’t see Mastrogiovanni at my side, I realized that he was attacked, he was on the ground and I ran to his aid. Up to this point, Alfinito, to whom I refused to speak, also agrees. He did not deny that my intervention was later, after the fight had started.”
Giovanni Scariati was acquitted during the preliminary investigation. Francesco Mastrogiovanni was charged with affray. Marini instead remained in prison, to be put on trial, together with Mastrogiovanni, on 28 February 1974.
The Marini trial and his long detention in prison, combined with the reconstruction according to which the clash in which Falvella died was to be attributed to a provocation by the fascists made Marini a hero of the Italian extra-parliamentary left.
Umberto Terracini, former president of the Constituent Assembly and signatory of the Italian Constitution, who subsequently joined the defense panel, also rallied in favor of Marini. In a year and a half, during preventive detention, he was transferred to 15 prisons throughout Italy, fighting and denouncing the sanitary conditions of the prisons through a document signed “The red prisoners”. For this reason he suffers violent beatings. Solidarity movements and demonstrations for the liberation of anarchists arise throughout Italy.
The tense situation also led to a transfer of the trial from Salerno to Vallo della Lucania for reasons of public order. In 1975 Marini was sentenced to twelve years in prison (subsequently reduced to nine, of which seven were served) for aggravated manslaughter and participation in a fight.
It was during his imprisonment that he wrote the book of poems E noi folli e just, which won the Viareggio Prize, “First Work” section. Numerous prominent figures of Italian culture spoke in favor of Marini’s poetic work; among others, Alberto Moravia, Camilla Cederna and Dario Fo.