1983
2 February, Rome
Paolo Di Nella, 20 years old, student
Di Nella decided that on 2 February a new political initiative by the Fronte della Gioventù would start in the Trieste-Salario neighborhood as part of the campaign for the public acquisition of Villa Chigi, an 18th-century villa with an adjoining park, to turn it into a socio-cultural center. The initiative involved a petition and a poster campaign. The first posting, on the afternoon of 2 February, was interrupted at the outset by a check from the Carabinieri, who prevented its continuation. Di Nella then decided to repeat the posting in the evening, around 10:00 PM, and was accompanied by a friend, Daniela Bertani.
He put up many posters in the area and during the operations, a moped with two people on board was repeatedly seen passing by. Arriving at Viale Libia at 12:45 AM, he got out of his car to post some posters on a billboard in the middle of the street, while Daniela Bertani waited in the car. Two young men were apparently waiting for a bus at the Atac stop for line 38 (even though buses were no longer running at that hour). According to reports from the Digos, one of the two approached Di Nella without speaking and struck him on the temple with a blunt object, probably a large baton or an iron bar. The attackers then fled on foot, heading down Via Lago Tana into the heart of the African quarter. Di Nella bent his legs but immediately got back up. Bertani approached him asking if he was hurt and Di Nella denied it. She then took him to Piazza Vescovio, where there was a fountain to wash the bleeding wound behind his ear. She gave him some tissues to stop the bleeding. Di Nella had her take him home, making her promise not to tell anyone about the incident. Returning home on Corso Trieste around 1:30 AM, he washed his hair, then lay down in his sister’s room (closer to the bathroom).
His parents were awakened by his groans, and Paolo asked for an ice pack and told his mother he feared a concussion. At that point, the family doctor was called and arranged for his hospitalization. An ambulance transported him to the Policlinico Umberto I, where he arrived at 4:00 AM already in a coma. From the next day, his friends kept vigil for 7 days in the hospital ward. During his stay, on 4 February, the Mayor of Rome, Ugo Vetere, rushed to the hospital and deplored the incident; on 5 February, President of the Republic Sandro Pertini also visited Di Nella in a private visit and was informed that the coma was irreversible. He then had a brief conversation with the family. Di Nella’s agony ended on 9 February at 8:05 PM, when he died without ever regaining consciousness. The incident prompted widespread solidarity. On 6 February, Giuliano Ferrara wrote in La Repubblica: “We have the right to say that for us this is not the death of a fascist, but the death of a man. And more: to say that if he chose to call himself a fascist and intended to live his future life as a fascist, well, he had the right to choose and live that way.” A telegram also arrived from PCI Secretary Enrico Berlinguer to the family, strongly condemning the attack: “The death of your very young Paolo, victim of an inhuman aggression that has shaken and outraged every civilized conscience, also arouses the heartfelt condolences of the communists. Please accept our condolences and our solidarity. Enrico Berlinguer.”
After his death, investigations were launched and some searches were conducted against members of the far-left in the African quarter. On 14 February, a leaflet claiming responsibility for the attack, signed by Autonomia Operaia, was found in a phone booth in Piazza Gondar after an anonymous call to the police. Among the suspects were Corrado Quarra and Luca Baldassarre, militants of Autonomia Operaia in the area. Realizing they were being watched, Quarra and Baldassarre went into hiding. They escaped an initial arrest in a house in Vetralla, where the police found still-warm milk from breakfast. Quarra was later arrested on 2 August at a routine checkpoint in Piazza Risorgimento, Rome. On 4 August, Daniela Bertani identified Quarra in a lineup as the person who struck Di Nella. Prosecutor Santacroce issued a warrant, and the Tribunal of Liberty validated the arrest.
Bertani was called back for a second identification on 4 November 1983 but misidentified the second suspect, Luca Baldassarre, effectively ending the investigation. The judge believed that since she misidentified the second suspect, she could have also been wrong about the first. On 29 December, Judge Vitaliano Calabria signed the order to release Corrado Quarra. The investigation was closed on 21 April 1986 with Quarra being acquitted.
At a press conference on the thirtieth anniversary of Paolo Di Nella’s death, then-Mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno, a friend of Di Nella, presented a dossier on some anomalies in the investigation, also revisiting issues raised by Corrado Augias, who in 1989 had dedicated an episode of the program Telefono Giallo to the case. Augias wrote in La Repubblica in 1989: “At the end of December 1983 Quarra was released. Two and a half years later, in April 1986, the final acquittal was issued for not having committed the act. Thus, six years later, Paolo Di Nella’s killers are still at large. Many know them but so far no one has spoken.”
Augias’ doubts were revisited, and the author explained: “In the release order for Corrado Quarra, issued on 29 December 1983, Judge Vitaliano Calabria noted that regarding the identification of the second suspect (Luca Baldassarre), Roberto Ferretti, identified positively by Daniela Bertani during the identification on 4 November 1983, was present among the subjects to be identified at the defense’s invitation. This was not the case. Ferretti, after being identified by Bertani, confessed under understandable fear that he had participated in the identification not at the defense’s invitation but at the behest of Quarra’s family. The judge thus omitted this important detail in the release order, that Ferretti was brought to the identification not because he resembled Baldassarre, but because he resembled Quarra.” Bertani always maintained that she was mistaken because she thought she was supposed to identify Quarra again, not the second suspect. Alemanno called for the case to be reopened.