The Bologna massacre (Italian: strage di Bologna) was a terrorist bombing of the Bologna Centrale railway station in Bologna, Italy, on the morning of 2 August 1980, which killed 85 people and wounded over 200.[1] Several members of the neo-fascist terrorist organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR, Armed Revolutionary Nuclei) were sentenced for the bombing,[2] although the group denied involvement.
Bystanders assisting the rescue operationRescuers carrying a victim
At 10:25 CEST, a time bomb hidden in an unattended suitcase detonated in an air-conditioned waiting room at the Bologna station, which was full of people seeking relief from the August heat. The explosion collapsed the roof of the waiting room, destroyed most of the main building, and hit the Ancona–Chiasso train which was waiting at the first platform.[3]
The station was full of tourists that Saturday, and the city was unprepared for a major disaster. Many passers-by and travelers provided first aid to victims and helped rescue people who were buried under the rubble.
Due to the large number of casualties and an insufficient number of emergency vehicles available to transport the injured to hospitals, firefighters used buses, private cars, and taxis. Some doctors and hospital staff returned early from vacation to care for the victims, and hospital departments which were closed for the summer holidays were reopened to accommodate the casualties.
After the attack, large demonstrations were held in Piazza Maggiore (Bologna's central square). Harsh criticism was directed at government representatives who attended the 6 August funerals of the victims in the Basilica San Petronio. The only applause was reserved for PresidentSandro Pertini, who arrived by helicopter in Bologna at 5:30 pm the day of the massacre and tearfully said: "I have no words; we are facing the most criminal enterprise that has ever taken place in Italy."[4]
The #37 bus (used to transport victims) and the clock (stopped at 10:25) were symbols of the massacre. The attack was the worst atrocity in Italy since World War II.[5]
Investigation
The government, led by Christian DemocraticPrime MinisterFrancesco Cossiga, first assumed that the incident was due to an accidental explosion of an old boiler in the station's basement. Evidence, however, soon pointed to terrorism.[6]L'Unità, the Italian Communist Party (PCI) newspaper, attributed responsibility for the attack to neo-fascists on 3 August. Later, in a special session of the Senate, Cossiga also supported the theory that neo-fascists were behind the attack: "Unlike leftist terrorism, which strikes at the heart of the state through its representatives, right-wing terrorism prefers acts such as massacres because acts of extreme violence promote panic and impulsive reactions."[7][8] The bomb was later found to be composed of 23 kilograms (51lb) of explosives: 5 kilograms (11lb) of TNT and Composition B and 18 kilograms (40lb) of T4 (nitroglycerin for civil use).[9]
False leads
Generals Pietro Musumeci, a member of Propaganda Due (P2), and Belmonte of SISMI had a police sergeant put a suitcase full of explosives on a train in Bologna. The suitcase also contained personal items belonging to two right-wing extremists, a Frenchman, and a German. Musumeci also produced a phony dossier, entitled "Terror on trains". He was charged with falsifying evidence to incriminate Roberto Fiore and Gabriele Adinolfi, two leaders of the far-right Terza Posizione who had fled to London.[10] Both Terza Posizione leaders said that Musumeci was trying to divert attention from P2 head Licio Gelli.[10]
The attack has been attributed to the NAR (Armed Revolutionary Nuclei), a neo-fascist terrorist organization. A long, controversial court case began after the bombing. Francesca Mambro and Valerio Fioravanti were initially sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Luigi Ciavardini, an NAR member with close ties to Terza Posizione, in April 2007. Ciavardini received a 30-year prison sentence for his role in the attack.[11] He had been arrested after the armed robbery of the Banca Unicredito di Roma on 15 September 2005.[12][13] Ciavardini was also charged with the assassinations of Francesco Evangelista on 28 May 1980 and Judge Mario Amato on 23 June 1980.[13]
On 26 August 1980, the prosecutor of Bologna issued twenty-eight arrest warrants for far-right militants of the NAR and Terza Posizione. Among those arrested were Massimo Morsello (future founder of the neo-fascist organization and political party Forza Nuova), Francesca Mambro, Aldo Semerari, Maurizio Neri, and Paolo Signorelli. They were interrogated in Ferrara, Rome, Padua, and Parma. All were released from prison in 1981.[14] Semerari was murdered by the Camorra a year later.[15]
The first trial began in Bologna on 9 March 1987. Massimiliano Fachini, Valerio Fioravanti, Francesca Mambro, Sergio Picciafuoco, Roberto Rinani and Paolo Signorelli were charged with murder. Gilberto Cavallini, Fachini, Fioravanti, Egidio Giuliani, Marcello Iannilli, Mambro, Giovanni Melioli, Picciafuoco, Roberto Raho, Rinani and Signorelli were charged with forming an armed gang. Marco Ballan, Giuseppe Belmonte, Fabio De Felice, Stefano Delle Chiaie, Fachini, Licio Gelli, Maurizio Giorgi, Pietro Musumeci, Francesco Pazienza, Signorelli and Adriano Tilgher were charged with subversive association. Belmonte, Gelli, Musumeci and Pazienza were charged with defamation.[16][pageneeded]
On 11 July 1988, Fachini, Fioravanti, Mambro and Picciafuoco were sentenced to life imprisonment for murder; Rinani and Signorelli were acquitted. Cavallini, Fachini, Fioravanti, Giuliani, Mambro, Picciafuoco, Rinani and Signorelli were convicted of forming an armed gang; Iannilli, Melioli and Raho were acquitted. Ballan, Belmonte, Felice, Delle Chiaie, Fachini, Gelli, Giorgi, Musumeci, Pazienza, Signorelli and Tilgher were acquitted of subversive association. Belmonte, Gelli, Musumeci and Pazienza were convicted of defamation.[16][pageneeded] The appeal process began on 25 October 1989.[16][pageneeded]
On appeal, Fachini, Fioravanti, Mambro, Picciafuoco, Rinani and Signorelli were acquitted of murder on 18 July 1990. Cavallini, Fioravanti, Mambro and Giuliani were convicted of forming an armed gang. Belmonte and Musumeci were convicted of defamation, and the other defendants were acquitted.[16][pageneeded]
On 12 February 1992, the Supreme Court of Cassation acquitted Rinani and Signorelli of murder; Signorelli was also acquitted of forming an armed gang and subversive association. The court also acquitted other defendants, canceled the judgment and ordered a new trial because the sentences were "illogical, incoherent, not assessing proofs and evidence in good terms, not taking into account the facts preceding and following the event, unmotivated or poorly motivated, in some parts the judges supporting unlikely arguments that not even the defense had argued".[17][pageneeded]
The new trial began on 11 October 1993. Massimiliano Fachini, Valerio Fioravanti, Francesca Mambro, and Sergio Picciafuoco were charged with murder; Gilberto Cavallini, Massimiliano Fachini, Egidio Giuliani, Valerio Fioravanti, Francesca Mambro, Sergio Picciafuoco and Roberto Rinani were charged with forming an armed gang, and Giuseppe Belmonte, Licio Gelli, Pietro Musumeci, and Francesco Pazienza were charged with defamation. On 16 May 1994, Fioravanti, Mambro and Picciafuoco were sentenced to life imprisonment; Fachini was acquitted. Cavallini, Fioravanti, Giuliani, Mambro and Picciafuoco were also convicted of forming an armed gang; Fachini and Rinani were acquitted. Belmonte, Gelli, Musumeci and Pazienza were convicted of defamation.[citation needed]
On 23 November 1995, the Supreme Court upheld the convictions of Fioravanti, Mambro, Gelli, Pazienza, Musumeci and Belmonte, ordering a new trial for Picciafuoco (who was acquitted by the Appeals Court in Florence on 18 June 1996, a verdict upheld by the Supreme Court on 15 April 1997). In April 1998, Mambro was given home confinement and allowed to leave prison during the day.[18]
In June 2000, Massimo Carminati (NAR member), Ivano Bongiovanni (far-right sympathizer) and Federigo Manucci Benincasa (SISMI officer) were convicted of obstruction. Carminati and Manucci Benincasa were acquitted for lack of evidence in December 2001, and Bongiovanni's conviction was upheld.[19] On 30 January 2003, the Court of Cassation finally acquitted Carminati and Manucci Benincasa.[citation needed]
In an article written by Alfio Bernabei for the British anti-fascist Searchlight magazine in April 2022, it was reported that "In a significant step in search for the truth behind the bombing at Bologna railway station that killed 85 people and wounded 200 on 2 August 1980 the far-right militant Paolo Bellini has been found guilty of direct involvement in the massacre. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment. The hearings at Bologna law Court began in April 2021 presided over by Judge Francesco Caruso with a number of lawyers acting on behalf of the Association of the Families of the Victims. Bellini, now 69-year-old, belonged to the far-right organisation Avanguardia Nazionale on whose instigation he killed a young left wing militant, Alceste Campanile, in 1975. In 1999, he confessed to this killing adding that he had also killed a number of people on behalf of mafia bosses. But he denied any involvement in the Bologna massacre."[20]
Alternative theories
Funerals of the victims
As a result of protracted legal procedures and false leads, a number of theories were proposed during the years after the attack. Involvement by Italian Secret Service officials was suggested.[21]
Between 1999 and 2006, during sessions of the parliamentary commission established to probe terrorism in Italy and the failure to identify those responsible for the massacre and a commission investigating the Mitrokhin dossier and Italian intelligence activity, new information emerged on international terrorist networks and Italian intelligence in the former Soviet bloc and Arab countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen and Iraq. Secret agreements with the Palestinian leadership tied to arms trafficking between the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Italy and a warning to the Italian anti-terrorist secret service three weeks before the massacre were discovered. Thomas Kram, member of a German terrorist group linked to Carlos the Jackal and the Palestinians, was in Bologna on the day of the massacre. On 17 November 2005, the Bologna prosecutor opened a case (Dossier 7823/2005 RG) against unknown persons.[22] According to media reports in 2004 and 2007,[23]Francesco Cossiga suggested Palestinian involvement in a letter to Enzo Fragalà of the Mitrokhin Commission.[24]
In 2005, Carlos the Jackal said that "the Mitrokhin Commission attempts to falsify history" and "they were the CIA and the Mossad to hit in Bologna" with the intent to punish Italy for its relationship with the PLO.[25]
After the 2006 arrest of former Argentine Triple A member Rodolfo Almirón, Spanish lawyer José Angel Pérez Nievas declared that it was "probable that Almirón participated—along with Stefano Delle Chiaie and Augusto Cauchi—in the 1980 bombing in Bologna's train station". In 1998, the Supreme Court of Argentina refused to extradite Cauchi to Italy.[26]
In May 2007, Massimo Sparti's son said: "My father has always lied about the Bologna investigation".[27]
During a 2008 BBC interview, former Italian president Francesco Cossiga reaffirmed his belief that the massacre was attributable to Palestinian resistance groups operating in Italy (rather than fascist right-wing terrorism) and in the innocence of Francesca Mambro and Valerio Fioravanti.[28][29] The PFLP has always denied responsibility.[30] On 19 August 2011, the Bologna prosecutor began an investigation of two German terrorists: Thomas Kram and Christa Margot Fröhlich, both linked to Carlos the Jackal's group and in Bologna on the day of the attack.[31]
Relatives of the victims formed the Associazione dei familiari delle vittime della strage alla stazione di Bologna del 2 agosto 1980 on 1 June 1981 to raise and maintain awareness of the bombing. The group, which began with 44 members, grew to 300. On 6 April 1983, the association and victims' associations of victims of the Piazza Fontana, Piazza della Loggia and Italicus Express bombings formed the Union of Relatives of Victims to Massacres (Unione dei Familiari delle Vittime per Stragi) in Milan.[32]
Plaque at the Bologna Central StationThe clock at Bologna Centrale railway station was permanently fixed at 10:25 to commemorate the massacre.
Bologna and the Associazione tra i familiari delle vittime della strage alla stazione di Bologna del 2 agosto 1980 sponsor an annual international composition competition which ends with a concert in Piazza Maggiore on 2 August, a national memorial day for all terrorist massacres. Although the damaged part of the station has been mostly reconstructed, the original floor tile pierced by the detonation has been left in place and a deep crack (covered by a glass panel) has been left in the reconstructed main wall. The explosion caused the station clock to stop at the time of the incident (10:25). Images of the stopped clock quickly became a visual symbol of the tragedy. The clock was initially repaired but in 1996, the authorities decided to permanently fix the clock at 10:25, as a commemoration.[33]
Robert Hellenga's 1998 novel The Fall of a Sparrow focuses on how the aftermath of the bombing affects a (fictional) American family. The protagonist becomes caught up in the prosecution of the perpetrators and life in Bologna.[37] The bombing is the backdrop of a chapter of Laurent Binet's The Seventh Function of Language[fr]. The 2017 French novel, which satirizes late-20th-century Parisian intellectual and political life,[38] involves two detectives investigating what they assume to be the murder of the philosopher Roland Barthes. The detectives, who travel to Bologna to interview Umberto Eco, narrowly escape injury in the attack.[citation needed]
Francesco Maurizio Cossiga was an Italian politician. A member of Christian Democracy, he was prime minister of Italy from 1979 to 1980 and the president of Italy from 1985 to 1992. Cossiga is widely considered one of the most prominent and influential politicians of the First Italian Republic.
Propaganda Due was a Masonic lodge, founded in 1877, within the tradition of Continental Freemasonry and under the authority of Grand Orient of Italy. Its Masonic charter was withdrawn in 1976, and it was transformed by Worshipful Master Licio Gelli into an international, illegal, clandestine, anti-communist, anti-Soviet, anti-Marxist, and radical right criminal organization and secret society operating in contravention of Article 18 of the Constitution of Italy that banned all such secret associations. Licio Gelli continued to operate the unaffiliated lodge from 1976 to 1984. P2 was implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries, including the collapse of the Holy See-affiliated Banco Ambrosiano, the contract killings of journalist Carmine Pecorelli and mobbed-up bank president Roberto Calvi, and political corruption cases within the nationwide Tangentopoli bribery scandal. P2 came to light through the investigations into the collapse of Michele Sindona's financial empire.
Licio Gelli was an Italian Freemason and businessman. A Fascist volunteer in his youth, he is chiefly known for his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal. He was revealed in 1981 as being the Venerable Master of the clandestine masonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2).
The Piazza Fontana bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on 12 December 1969 when a bomb exploded at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88. The same afternoon, another bomb exploded in a bank in Rome, and another was found unexploded in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The attack was carried out by the Third Position, neo-fascist paramilitary terrorist group Ordine Nuovo, and possibly undetermined collaborators.
Stefano Delle Chiaie was an Italian neo-fascist terrorist. He was the founder of Avanguardia Nazionale, a member of Ordine Nuovo, and founder of Lega nazionalpopolare. He went on to become a wanted man worldwide, suspected of involvement in Italy's strategy of tension, but was acquitted. He was a friend of Licio Gelli, grandmaster of P2 masonic lodge. He was suspected of involvement in South America's Operation Condor, but was acquitted. He was known by his nickname "il caccola" as he was just over five feet tall - although he stated that originally, the nickname came from his very young involvement, at age 14, in the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist political party established after the war.
The Italicus Express massacre was a terrorist bombing in Italy on a train of the public rail network. On 4 August 1974, the bomb attack killed 12 people and wounded 48. Responsibility was claimed by the neo-fascist terrorist organization Ordine Nero.
The Piazza della Loggia bombing was a bombing that took place on the morning of 28 May 1974, in Brescia, Italy during an anti-fascist protest. The terrorist attack killed eight people and wounded 102. The bomb was placed inside a rubbish bin at the east end of the square. In 2015, a Court of appeal in Milan issued a final life sentence to Ordine Nuovo members Carlo Maria Maggi and Maurizio Tramonte for ordering the bombing, closing one of the longest-running cases on terrorism during Italy's years of lead.
The Banda della Magliana was an Italian criminal organization based in Rome. It was founded in 1975. Given by the media, the name refers to the original neighborhood, the Magliana, of some of its members.
The Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, abbreviated NAR, was an Italian neo-fascist armed militant organization active during the Years of Lead from 1977 to November 1981. It committed over 100 murders in four years, and had planned to assassinate the politicians Francesco Cossiga, Gianfranco Fini and Adolfo Urso. The group maintained close links with the Banda della Magliana, a Rome-based criminal organization, which provided such logistical support as lodging, false papers, weapons, and bombs to the NAR. In November 1981, it was discovered that the NAR hid weapons in the basements of the Health Ministry. The first trial against them sentenced 53 people in May 1985 on charges of terrorist activities.
Carmine "Mino" Pecorelli was an Italian journalist, shot dead in Rome a year after former prime minister Aldo Moro's 1978 kidnapping and subsequent killing. He was described as a "maverick journalist with excellent secret service contacts". According to Pecorelli, Aldo Moro's kidnapping had been organized by a "lucid superpower" and was inspired by the "logic of Yalta". Pecorelli's name was on Licio Gelli's list of Propaganda Due (P2) masonic members, discovered in 1980 by the Italian police.
In Italy, the phrase Years of Lead refers to a period of political violence and social upheaval that lasted from the late 1960s until the late 1980s, marked by a wave of both far-left and far-right incidents of political terrorism and violent clashes.
Francesco Pazienza is an Italian businessman and former officer of the SISMI, the Italian military intelligence agency. As of April 2007, he had been paroled to the community of Lerici, after serving many years in prison, including a 1993 conviction due to his role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, and a 1982 conviction for mishandling state secrets.
Giuseppe Valerio Fioravanti is an Italian former terrorist and actor, who was a leading figure in the far-right Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari. Fioravanti appeared in films and television at a young age, and was considered the most famous child in Italy. He and Francesca Mambro were fugitives wanted for terrorist offences by their early twenties, and went on the run as suspects in the Bologna bombing. Both were captured after gunfights with police, and later found guilty. They were sentenced to ten life sentences plus 250 years. Fioravanti was released from prison in 2009.
Mario Amato was an Italian magistrate, assassinated in 1980 by NAR members Gilberto Cavallini and Luigi Ciavardini.
Pietro Musumeci is a former general and deputy director of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI.
The Train 904 bombing was a terror attack which occurred on 23 December 1984, in the Apennine Base Tunnel. A bomb on the 904 express train from Naples to Milan was detonated, killing 16 and wounding 266. The bombing location was near the location of the Italicus Express bombing ten years previously.
The Acca Larentia killings, also known in Italy as the Acca Larentia massacre, were a double homicide that occurred in Rome on 7 January 1978. The attack was claimed by the self-described Nuclei Armati per il Contropotere Territoriale. Members of militant far-left groups were charged but acquitted, and the culprits were never identified.
Francesca Mambro is an Italian activist and former terrorist, who was a leading member of the far-right Italian Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (NAR). She was arrested in Rome in March 1982 as a suspect in the Bologna bombing of August 1980. Mambro was tried and found guilty of the bombing, charges totaling 96 murders. She was sentenced to nine life sentences, or 84 years' imprisonment. Mambro was paroled in 2013 and her sentence expired five years later.
Franco Anselmi was an Italian neofascist terrorist who was active in the organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari. He was killed during an attempt to rob a gun shop in Rome.
Paolo Signorelli was an Italian author, activist, and politician of the extreme right.
↑ The Association was responsible, together with other associations of victims of massacres the publication of the book entitled Il terrorismo e le sue maschere published by Pendragon in Bologna
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