1978

February 21, Venice
Franco Battagliarin, 48 years old, security guard

On the night of February 21, a bomb placed in front of the entrance of the Gazzettino, in the heart of Venice, in calle de le Acque, near the Mercerie, kills Franco Battagliarin, 49, security guard of Civis, night porter of Ca’ Faccanon, historic headquarters of the newspaper Il Gazzettino that a few months ago had moved to the mainland in Mestre, leaving only the local editorial staff in the historic center. Three weeks later, in Rome, the Red Brigades would have kidnapped Mr Aldo Moro.

To date, there is no culprit for the killing of Battagliarin. Not even the statements of Carlo Digilio, a collaborator of justice, repentant of the subversive right, found a procedural follow-up: in 1996 he stated that it was Giampietro Montavoci, a Venetian orderist, who placed the bomb. He would have confided it to him himself. But the person concerned could neither deny nor confirm: he had died 12 years earlier, skidding by car near the border with Slovenia.