April 10, 1980: Turin

Giuseppe Pisciuneri, 29 years old, security guard

At 7:30 a.m., as he did every morning, Giuseppe Pisciuneri, a thirty-year-old originally from Calabria and a security guard for nine years, left his home on Via Nizza and walked towards Corso Turati 11, where Mondialpol was located. Walking briskly, he turned onto Via Ribet. At number 14, a green Fiat 128 was parked by the sidewalk. Inside the vehicle were three young men, two of whom quickly exited the car and approached Pisciuneri brandishing a revolver.
One of the assailants grabbed Pisciuneri’s arm while the other snatched his service weapon, a Smith & Wesson .38 Special, from its holster. Pisciuneri did not give up; he elbowed one of the terrorists, sending him flying, and attempted to reclaim his weapon. A struggle ensued, and within seconds, a shot rang out. The tragedy unfolded swiftly. Giuseppe Pisciuneri lay on the ground in his own blood. Some passersby witnessed the scene from a distance, and some people looked out of their windows after hearing the gunfire. However, no one had time to alert the nearest police station. Rosanna Binelli, 25, the wife of the slain guard, was rushed to the hospital after collapsing upon hearing of her husband’s death.
At 10:30 a.m., the phone rang at the offices of the newspaper “Stampa Sera.” A female voice claimed responsibility for the “disarming” of the guard:
“This morning at 7:30 a.m. on Via Ribet, a proletarian patrol disarmed a Mondialpol. This operation is part of a campaign to expel the hierarchy of control over the proletarians from the territory. Honor to the comrades who fell for communism. Proletarian Patrols.”
The perpetrators of the murder were Guido Manina and Daniele Gatto, former militants of the far-left armed organization “Prima Linea,” who later confessed after “dissociating” from the group. In 1988, they were sentenced to 23 and 15 years in prison respectively for this and other past crimes. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gatto was granted semi-freedom with external work, but in 1992 he went on the run during a six-day furlough. In 1993, he was arrested in Spain during a robbery in which his accomplice, former Red Brigades member Ermanno Faggiani, was killed in a shootout with Spanish police.