“Spies working for the Italian secret services who infiltrated the Red Brigades were the masterminds behind the kidnapping and murder of the former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978, according to one of the group’s founders.”
“Alberto Franceschini, who spent 18 years in prison for his role in the leftwing terrorist organisation, told a parliamentary commission on terrorism last month of his suspicions about the manipulation of the Red Brigades by conservative forces. His testimony was published yesterday by L’Espresso news magazine.”
“He said he suspected that two leading Red Brigades members, Mario Moretti and Giovanni Senzani, had been spies.”
“Those who share Mr Franceschini’s doubts believe that the Italian and United States secret services used the Red Brigades to block Moro’s attempt to bring the Communist Party into a government of national unity.”
“Mr Moretti was the organisation’s leader when the leader of the Christian Democrat Party was snatched from a Rome street and held hostage for 55 days before being executed by his captors.”
“Mr Senzani later headed the group in a particularly violent phase of its history.”
“Mr Franceschini said both he and Renato Curcio, the original leader of the Red Brigades, suspected that Mr Moretti had betrayed Mr Curcio to the police.”
“Mr Curcio was arrested in January 1976, two days after Mr Moretti had asked for his address, saying he wanted to spend the night at his home. Mr Franceschini said Mr Curcio had confided to him in prison that he was ‘certain that Moretti was a spy’.”
“He said Mr Senzani’s past justified suspicion: he had worked for the justice ministry as a consultant criminologist and had been allowed to study in the US in 1977, despite being under investigation in Florence for his Red Brigades links and at a time when members of the Italian Communist Party were routinely refused visas.”
“In his evidence to the commission, Mr Franceschini said: ‘From a military point of view, those of you who know the people who were supposed to have carried out the [moro] operation will be perfectly aware that they were not capable of it.'”
“In the past Mr Franceschini has said that he believed the kidnappers’ decision to wear airline pilots’ uniforms when they ambushed Moro and killed his five bodyguards suggested that not all of them knew one another.”
“‘From my knowledge of the people involved, I am convinced that that was an extremely complex operation that could not have been accomplished by the individuals identified as having participated in the official accounts,’ he told the commission.”
“Mr Franceschini said Moro was eventually killed because of sensitive information he revealed to his captors that would have been highly damaging to the interests of the state if made public.”
Read more: Infiltrators blamed for murder of Italian PM
2021-week30
