1981
October 21, Milan
Francesco Straullu, 26 years old, captain of Public Security
Ciriaco Di Roma, 30 years old, chosen guard of Public Security
The three [Alibrandi, Cavallini, and Sordi] hurriedly left Milan [where they killed two policemen in a random shootout], returning by train to Rome, because another action was ready, again against the police: by now, it was open war between the NAR and anti-terrorism. More from Francesca Mambro:
It had become almost a personal war between us and the Digos of Rome. For months, alarming news had been coming from prison about the interrogation methods of Captain Straullu, who was the Roman head of anti-terrorism for the right-wing. I repeat, bad and unpleasant information came to us regarding him. We saw that even Di Vittorio recounted being interrogated and beaten in Treviso by agents of the Roman Digos, led by Straullu. And Magnetta named the Digos officer as responsible for the team that fired at the Gaggiolo checkpoint, injuring Carminati.
Francesca Mambro continues:
There were several people who had been beaten by him or by people from his team. For example, Gabriele De Francisci underwent a very heavy interrogation, with many beatings, as did Riccardo Brugia and other arrested boys. But we had come to accept it as a thing. When they arrest you, you also count on being beaten to make you talk. I always said that if one cannot endure suffering and physical pain and speaks, you cannot blame them. Trained men like secret agents even give in because why shouldn’t a twenty-year-old boy collapse, after all? And then who among us can know if and how much they would resist physical pain? In fact, when we heard rumors about people who did not have a “integrated” attitude toward beatings or torture, I was always hesitant to condemn them.
But then we learned that Straullu had surrounded the wife of an arrested comrade and, moreover, had even gone into the cell to tell him. That, I believe, was the last straw, because it meant taking away a person’s dignity, humiliating them in their privacy, and this was considered unacceptable by most of us. It was a painful decision to kill Straullu; some of us were against it because they did not want to oppose the police. “We already have them on our backs,” they said, “if we do such a thing, they will no longer give us respite. Why should we get involved in this story?” But then the decision to act prevailed. Enough, we said, let’s put an end once and for all to this story.
Straullu always drove in an armored car, driven by a Digos agent. He lived in the southern outskirts of the Capital, in Casal Bernocchi, towards Ostia. So the NAR armed themselves with assault rifles and armor-piercing bullets to break glass and armored plating. Cavallini even brought an Indian lance, with which to pierce Straullu’s heart. A symbolic meaning, according to him, as a warning to those who oppose the NAR. The action started at 9 in the morning on October 21, 1981. The NAR decided to wait for the Digos car at the exit of a short underpass leading to Via Ostiense. Vale and Mambro, in a car, were under Straullu’s house and would act as a relay, warning the firing group of the arrival of the police car. In previous ambushes, Straullu had been accompanied by a driver in an armored white Alfa Romeo, but today Mambro and Vale saw him get into a red Alfasud, apparently without armor. They left and arrived at the point where the black commando was posted.
They warned them: “Look, today Straullu is in a red Alfasud, not in the armored white Alfa Romeo.” But now the weapons were those. A few minutes later, the Alfa driven by chosen agent Ciriaco Di Roma, with Straullu at his side, entered the short tunnel of Ponte Ladrone. Sordi, with a G3 assault rifle on his shoulder, stood in the middle of the road and fired into the cabin, immediately followed by Alibrandi, who aimed with a Garand at the two policemen. The car now proceeded without control and, as soon as it exited the tunnel, was hit by bursts of M12 fired by Cavallini and Soderini. Then it ended its run against a wall.
Alibrandi approached Straullu and fired a final shot to the head, causing devastating effects, because the Garand was loaded with tracer bullets and he did not know it. At that point, the attack turned into a slaughter. Even beyond the intentions of the terrorists, who prevented Mambro from approaching the two lifeless bodies to take their guns and gave up the idea of ​​piercing Straullu with Cavallini’s lance. Then they fled in two cars.
By now the NAR had cut ties with everything and everyone