A suspected perpetrator of the murderous 1980 Bologna bombing is brought to justice

An alleged perpetrator of the Bologna train station attack, which killed 85 people in 1980, appeared on Friday at the opening of his trial, more than 40 years after the tragedy attributed to the violent far-right nebula.

The bloodiest attack of the lead years in Italy occurred at 10:25 a.m. on August 2, 1980, in the crowded second-class waiting room, blown up by the explosion of a suitcase bomb.

200 wounded

“I feel like Sacco and Vanzetti,” Paolo Bellini said upon his arrival at the Bologna court, referring to anarchists of Italian origin Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti executed in 1927 in the United States and rehabilitated half a century later .

The mayor of Bologna, Virginio Merola, and relatives of victims (the attack left 200 injured) were also present at the opening of the hearing, according to Italian agencies. “This massacre, which was intended to sabotage Italian democracy, struck the victims, the city and all of Italy,” declared a civil party lawyer, Andrea Speranzoni, quoted by the Ansa agency.

Former neo-fascite activist

Four members of the neo-fascist group Revolutionary Armed Nuclei (NAR) were sentenced to life imprisonment as the perpetrators of the attack: Valerio Fioravanti, Francesca Mambro and Gilberto Cavallini in life imprisonment, Luigi Ciavardini, a minor at the time of the facts, to 30 years in prison.

Questioned four decades after the facts by the magistrates now in charge of this sprawling case, Paolo Bellini is a former activist of the neo-fascist organization Avanguardia Nazionale and repentant killer of the ‘Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia. According to the prosecution, a photo in particular places him in Bologna on the morning of the attack – which his defense denies – and his wife has provided a false alibi.

Red and black terrorism

Several other defendants, including members of the Italian military intelligence services, were sentenced to lighter sentences, from seven to 10 years in prison, for obstructing justice, having slowed the search for the truth. The families of the victims and many Italians believe that the condemned are only executioners and that the real sponsors remain unknown and unpunished.

From the 1960s, Italy experienced an outbreak of violence that claimed hundreds of victims. In addition to mafia assassinations and villainous kidnappings, radical extreme left and extreme right groups increased the number of targeted attacks and assassinations. Faced with “red terrorism”, “black terrorism” followed a “strategy of tension” intended to promote the emergence of an authoritarian political regime.