1987
March 20, Rome
Licio Giorgieri, 61 years old, Air Force General and Director General of the Ministry of Defense
Murder
On March 20, 1987 in Rome, General Giorgieri, while returning to his home aboard a service vehicle, was approached on Via del Fontanile Arenato by members of the Red Brigades – Union of Communist Combatants on a motorcycle. The terrorists fired five shots and killed the general, leaving the driver, Simone Narcelli, an army driver, unharmed. He was targeted as a possible Italian reference for Reagan’s space shield project.
On December 9 or 10 of the previous year, the general had reported a possible failed attempt on his life at the same location. He had requested greater protection, but it was not granted.
Trial
The perpetrators of the attack, claimed by the organization “Red Brigades for the Union of Communist Combatants” (BR – UCC), were never accurately identified. Collaborators of justice Daniele Mennella and Claudio Nasti, although involved in the preparation of the attack, were unable to indicate who carried out the action as they were excluded from the final stages. After alternating trial outcomes, in November 1991 Claudia Gioia, Francesco Maietta, Maurizio Locusta, and Paolo Persichetti were nonetheless sentenced to over 20 years in prison by definitive judgment of the Court of Cassation, while justice collaborators Daniele Mennella and Claudio Nasti received much lesser sanctions. The Cassation Court, first section presided over by Corrado Carnevale, annulled and remanded the convictions of Paolo Cassetta, Geraldina Colotti, and Fabrizio Melorio because they were detained at the time of the crime. After a second appellate process, they too received final convictions of over 20 years from the Cassation. Serafino Turchetti, president of the third trial court who had acquitted several defendants of the most serious charges during the first trial process, some of whom permanently disappeared from the criminal procedure, following controversy, was subjected to internal investigation and subsequently transferred from office to civil court.
Claudia Gioia, sentenced to 27 years in prison for the murder of General Giorgieri and for the injury of economist Da Empoli, currently serves as one of the directors of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome and teaches at the Don Sturzo Foundation.
In 2002, Mrs. Giorgieri, now in her seventies, opposed a pardon request for Maietta after expressing concerns in 1998 about Senator Francesco Cossiga’s participation in Maietta’s marriage to a volunteer from an organization for the recovery of prisoners from Rebibbia prison.
Maurizio Locusta, also charged in the Moro third trial, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Extradited on March 15, 1988 from France where he had taken refuge, he currently works for the Lelio Basso-Issoco Foundation as a “consultation room assistant”.
Paolo Persichetti, acquitted in the first trial of complicity in the attack, released in December 1989 for exceeding the one-year detention deadline, was sentenced on appeal, due to new evidence, to 22 years and six months for moral involvement in the murder. He fled to France in 1991 to avoid arrest and there became involved in university life, eventually obtaining a position as an assistant at the University of Paris VIII. Unlike other terrorists sheltered and protected in France such as Cesare Battisti, who managed to escape to Brazil subsequently on August 25, 2002, he was handed over to Italy. In June 2008, after serving well over half of his sentence, he was granted parole. He worked as a journalist for the Manifesto and other publications and authored several books on social conflict, some co-written with Oreste Scalzone, published in France and Italy.
Geraldina Colotti, convicted for moral involvement and later acquitted by the Cassation Court because she was already detained and physically unable to participate in the crime, is a journalist. She worked at the Manifesto from 1987 to 2017 and covers topics related to Latin America, serving as a correspondent from Venezuela since 2000. She edits the Italian edition of Le Monde diplomatique.