1976

March 14, Rome
Mario Marotta, 52 years old, engineer

Piazza di Spagna, about 18.40.

About eighty extra-parliamentary boys, during an anti-Franco demonstration, divided into three groups head towards the Spanish embassy hurling a dozen Molotov cocktails and flee to the staircase of Trinità dei Monti and for the ascent of San Sebastianello.

After a first moment of surprise, the police react by shooting. The alarm is issued to all the steering wheels of the city; one of them, to be precise a “Campagnola” of the Celere that was in via Sistina, is in pursuit of a small group of protesters who came from the climb of San Sebastianello on the avenue of Trinità dei Monti.

A celerino chases a protester, Luigi De Angelis, against whom he shoots a gunshot, injuring him; the other agent rushed towards a second young man on the run and (according to what was confirmed by a first expert report) also shoots at least two shots.

During this ‘urban guerrilla’ Mario Marotta, a 52-year-old engineer, is shot to death, while walking with his girlfriend along the avenue that leads to Trinità dei Monti, Pincio area: he will die instantly.

Mario Marotta was the brother of the lieutenant of the carabinieri Aldo Marotta, on duty at the Ministry of Defense.

Rome, March 15, 1976 – ANSA: The autopsy carried out on the victim’s body, ordered by the deputy prosecutor Rossini who carries out the investigation for the killing of engineer Mario Marotta, made it possible to establish that the man was killed by a 7.65 caliber bullet that penetrated the right temple and stopped just before the left parietal bone, along an almost horizontal route.

This caliber is the same as the bullets that injured Luigi De Angelis, an alleged bomber, against whom Agent Lucio Lucentini shot. Deputy prosecutor Rossini at the time of the interrogation of the officer formulated the hypothesis that he was responsible for the crime of manslaughter. The officer told the magistrate that he had fired five gunshots, two at the young de Angelis on the run who, in his opinion, was about to throw him at an incendiary bottle, and the others in the air.

The information contained in this card was extracted from the “Libertà” newspaper of Piacenza, in the days immediately following the killing of Mario Marotta.