1981
April 27, Torre del Greco (NA)
Mario Cancello, 35 years old, Employee of the Campania Region
Luigi Carbone, Brigadier of Public Security
The Cirillo Kidnapping
On the evening of April 27, 1981, fifteen minutes before 10 p.m. in Torre del Greco, the Naples column of the Red Brigades kidnapped Ciro Cirillo. Since 1981, the Christian Democrat had been the public works assessor for the Campania Region. Five militants of the armed party seized him from the garage of his home at Via Cimaglia 125. Leading the commando was the head of the Neapolitan column of the Red Brigades, Giovanni Senzani. During the frantic moments, Luigi Carbone, the brigadier of public security escorting the Campanian politician, and the driver Mario Cancello were killed, while Ciro Fiorillo, Cirillo’s secretary, was shot in the leg. Shortly after 10 p.m., journalist Luigi Necco appeared on RAI screens with a special edition of the news, announcing the terrorists’ criminal action. From then on, one of the darkest episodes not only in Campanian history and the post-earthquake period of the 1980s but in the entire Italian republican saga began.
The Red Brigades of Giovanni Senzani fled Torre del Greco and took the hostage to an apartment in Cercola, on central Corso Riccardi, less than ten kilometers away. This would be Cirillo’s “people’s prison” for the next 89 days: very similar to those of Aldo Moro and other Red Brigades hostages, equipped with a cot and chemical toilet. According to the reconstruction by Judge Carlo Alemi the day after the kidnapping, on April 28, 1981, the secret services mobilized to free the assessor from the hands of the Red Brigades. This led to a first meeting at the high-security prison of Ascoli Piceno (with others to follow). According to the judiciary, two SISDE officials, the boss of the New Organized Camorra Raffaele Cutolo (then detained there), and Cirillo’s former secretary participated in the meeting; Cutolo’s lieutenant, Enzo Casillo, was also present. From that moment, at the precise request of subjects belonging to the Italian Republic’s security apparatus, Cutolo played a leading role in the Cirillo affair. The Ottaviano boss, however, demanded and obtained that two of his loyalists be involved in the negotiations: Corrado Iacolare and Enzo Casillo. The latter, a fugitive, was even provided with a secret service cover badge (he would mysteriously explode in his car on January 29, 1983, in Rome, near the SISMI headquarters, the military secret services). The Red Brigades issued three communiqués between April 30 and May 7, 1981. Cirillo, subjected to a “people’s trial” with video recordings, was accused, among other things, of the “deportation of the earthquake-stricken proletarians.” On May 12, the Red Brigades, with communiqué number 5, released a message from the hostage. Cirillo said: “Earthquake victims, I am Ciro Cirillo, imprisoned in the people’s prison as a prisoner of war of the Red Brigades. I am paying for 30 years of anti-proletarian activities. I have realized that reconstruction cannot be based on deportation.” A few days later, the leader of the Christian Democrats in the Naples city council requested the requisition of 900 vacant homes for the earthquake victims. On June 7, after days of silence, a letter written by the hostage himself arrived at the Cirillo household, addressed to his sons Franco and Bernardo. The Red Brigades demanded the complete publication of the interrogation to which they had subjected Cirillo. A few days later, the newspaper “Lotta Continua” published the minutes with the headline: “Four pages we would have preferred not to publish.” Cirillo recounted 30 years of power and Christian Democracy in Naples, listing names, factions, and political strategies. On July 9, 1981, communiqué number 11 arrived with the ominous five-pointed star containing a grim message: “The trial of Ciro Cirillo is over, and the death sentence of this executioner is the rightful sentence in this class-divided society and at the same time the highest act of humanity that revolutionary forces can perform.” There was also a phone call (the audio of which exists) from the brigatista Antonio Chiocci announcing the macabre sentence: “The trial of Ciro Cirillo is over, and the death sentence of this executioner is the rightful sentence in this class-divided society.” Meanwhile, the family received a ransom demand: 5 billion lire. In the end, the terrorists “settled” for 1.45 billion lire, delivered on July 21, 1981, by a Cirillo family intermediary to a brigatista in Rome, on the tram connecting the Termini station to Centocelle. On July 24, 1981, assessor Ciro Cirillo was released in an abandoned building on Via Stadera in Naples, in the Poggioreale area. A highway patrol intercepted him on Via Traccia, nearby, and took him on board, heading towards the Naples police headquarters where magistrates wanted to interrogate Cirillo. As recalled by magistrate Libero Mancuso, the patrol had not yet traveled two hundred meters when three more patrol cars blocked it. Vice-commissioner Biagio Giliberti got out of one and ordered the officers to hand over Cirillo to him. He was taken to his home in Torre del Greco, where magistrates could not approach him for 48 hours, contrary to Antonio Gava and Flaminio Piccoli, then political secretary of the Christian Democrats, who visited Cirillo. In November 1981, Cirillo left his position as regional assessor and on April 16, 1982, he also resigned as regional councilor. It was the end of his political career. He died on July 30, 2017, at the age of 96, without ever fully clarifying the circumstances of his release.