1978

February 28, Rome
Roberto Scialabba, 23 years old

Components of the far-right terrorist group NAR “Nuclei Armati Rovuzionari” (the Fioravanti brothers, Alessandro Alibrandi, Franco Anselmi and a few others) went shortly after 23.00 on February 28, 1978 to Piazza Don Bosco to the Appio-Tuscolano district and, getting out of a car, began shooting at the boys sitting on the benches of the gardens. Roberto Scialabba, a young militant of “Lotta continua”, fell to the ground wounded; a member of the commando ended him with a blow to the head. His brother managed to escape although wounded. A few hours later, the acronym “Gioventù Nazional Popolare” – behind which the NARs were hidden – attributed with a phone call to “Il Messaggero” the responsibility for the murder, stating that he wanted to avenge the ambow at the MSI section of Via Acca Larentia (see card). For some time, however, the murder was considered a settling of accounts between rival gangs for the control of the heroin market in that area of Rome. Only years later will the statements made by Cristiano Fioravanti make it possible to shed light on the murder and its perpetrators. The trials will ascertain, in particular, that the murder was carried out precisely to “avenge” the ambit of Via Acca Larentia that took place just over a month before, according to rumors collected in prison, the “reds” of San Giovanni Bosco were to be blamed. The murder had also been an opportunity to remember Mikis Mantakas (see card), the young Greek neo-fascist killed three years earlier, during the clashes between militants of the right and left who intervened on the occasion of the trial for the “Fire of Primavalle” that had determined the death of Virgil and Stefano Mattei. The murder of Roberto Scialabba marked the beginning of a new phase of the political violence of right-wing extremism triggered by the events of Via Acca Larentia.

The description of the murder is also included in the filing request (!) Presented by the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office for the murder of Valerio Verbano.

“That February 28, 1978, as confessed by Fioravanti Giuseppe Valerio in the interrogation of April 5, 1986, and reported in the aforementioned sentence of the 5th section of the Court of Assizeses of Rome, ‘The retaliatory action was to take place (…) against the abusive occupants, perhaps activists of Proletarian Democracy, of a house in via Calpurnio Fiamma, but when they arrived on the spot they found [we found] that the building had been evicted by the police’.

The members of the Nar then took a tour of the neighborhood and saw three or four boys dressed as companions in Don Bosco square.”

The Court also notes that the event ‘did not explode suddenly (…) but was coldly prepared, and reached a place distant from the one usually frequented not to defend himself with weapons, but to put in place with weapons the event-death’.

To physically kill Roberto Scialabba was Fioravanti Giuseppe Valerio, who “wound with his own revolver, a 38 Franchi Llama 6 inches, a young man (Roberto Scialabba) who fell to the ground: he straddled his body and shot him in the head once or twice; he turned in the direction of another boy who was running away exploding against him other shots, but without tapping him”.

In addition, the sentence also stated that “Valerio Fioravanti had demanded that Alibrandi did not shoot because it was not good for him that he had already killed a comrade, that is Walter Rossi, while he still could not boast of such a gesture”.

To carry out the action of fire, while other militants carried out a safety frame at a variable distance on two other cars, were Fioravanti Giuseppe Valerio, Fioravanti Cristiano and Anselmi Franco.

The murder of Roberto Scialabba was claimed with the acronym ‘National Revolutionary Justice or something similar’.