Piazza Fontana bombing
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The Piazza Fontana bombing (strage di Piazza Fontana) refers to the terrorist bombing on December 12, 1969 in the offices of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura ("National Agrarian Bank") in Piazza Fontana, Milan, Italy, carried out by far-right terrorists. In total, 16 people were killed and up to 90 were wounded. The aim of the attack was to make the public believe that the bombings were part of a communist insurgency, in order to "push the Italian state to proclaim the state of emergency", according to neofascist terrorist Vincenzo Vinciguerra's confessions. This has been called in Italy strategia della tensione.
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[edit] Giuseppe Pinelli and 4 000 arrests
The terrorist act was initially attributed to anarchist bombers. Over 4,000 arrests were made in the aftermath of the bombings and one of the suspects, Giuseppe Pinelli, died after falling out of the fourth floor window of the police station where he was being held.[1] Anarchist Pietro Valpreda was also arrested and later released.
[edit] Ordine Nuovo and David Carrett, officer of the U.S. Navy
Far-right terrorist organization Ordine Nuovo, founded by Pino Rauti, was then suspected. In 1989, Stefano Delle Chiaie was arrested in Caracas, Venezuela and rendered to Italy to stand trial for his role in this bombing. Despite his reputation, Delle Chiaie was acquitted by the Assise Court in Catanzaro in 1989, along with fellow accused Massimiliano Fachini. In 1998, David Carrett, officer of the U.S. Navy, was put under investigation on charges of political and military espionage and his participation to the Piazza Fontana bombing, among other events. Judge Guido Salvini also opened up a case against Sergio Minetto, Italian official for the US-NATO intelligence network, and pentito Carlo Digilio, who was suspected as a CIA informant. La Repubblica underlined that Carlo Rocchi, CIA's man at Milan, was surprised in 1995 searching for information concerning Operation Gladio, thus demonstrating that all was not over.[2]
A June 20, 2001 conviction of Italian Neo-fascists Doctor Carlo Maria Maggi, Delfo Zorzi and Giancarlo Rognoni (all members of Ordine Nuovo) was overturned in March 2004. Pentito Carlo Di Giglio received immunity from prosecution in exchange of his information, as the pentito status allows.
A 2000 parliamentary report published by the Olive Tree coalition claimed "that US intelligence agents were informed in advance about several rightwing terrorist bombings, including the December 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan and the Piazza della Loggia bombing in Brescia five years later, but did nothing to alert the Italian authorities or to prevent the attacks from taking place. It also [alleged] that Pino Rauti [curent leader of the MSI Fiamma-Tricolore party], a journalist and founder of the far-right Ordine Nuovo (new order) subversive organisation, received regular funding from a press officer at the US embassy in Rome. 'So even before the 'stabilising' plans that Atlantic circles had prepared for Italy became operational through the bombings, one of the leading members of the subversive right was literally in the pay of the American embassy in Rome,' the report says."[3]
[edit] References
- ^ "1969: Deadly bomb blasts in Italy", BBC News, December 12. Retrieved on April 2006.
- ^ "Strage di Piazza Fontana spunta un agente USA", La Repubblica, February 11, 1998. ("A US agent appears in the Piazza Fontana bombing")
- ^ US 'supported anti-left terror in Italy', The Guardian, June 24, 2000
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- February 11, 1998 article from La Repubblica, with links to the full text of the judiciary sentence and the full report from the Italian Commission on Terrorism
[1] On this day from BBC news December 12th, 1969
