1980

March 16, Salerno
Nicola Giacumbi, 51 years old, magistrate

The murder of Nicola Giacumbi was committed in Salerno on March 16, 1980, by the Red Brigades. The assassination is attributed a “strong symbolic value,” carried out two years after the Moro kidnapping, aiming to “support the hypothesis of creating a bloc of terrorist violence uniting the North and the South.” Nicola Giacumbi, a Public Prosecutor in Salerno, was assassinated in Salerno in the late afternoon of Sunday by a Salerno cell (Fabrizio Pelli column, editor’s note) of the Red Brigades, with a burst of shots to the back (14 shots, editor’s note) in front of his home while he was returning, in front of his wife Lilli, who was grazed by a bullet but remained unharmed. The magistrate, in accepting the role of acting Public Prosecutor, had previously refused a security detail to avoid risking other lives, as had happened in the Moro kidnapping.
The Red Brigades claimed responsibility for the murder with a phone call to a local television station. His assassination was part of a campaign of attacks against state representatives, which, two days later in Rome, led to the murder of another magistrate, Girolamo Minervini, and the following day, March 19, to that of Guido Galli, killed by members of Prima Linea.
On March 28, the carabinieri led by General Dalla Chiesa raided the hideout on Via Fracchia in Genoa, where, in the ensuing firefight, four terrorists were killed. Eight members of the Red Brigades were identified as the perpetrators of the murder and were all convicted by the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Potenza.