Interview With A Member Of The Red Brigades

[The following interview took place in 1981 and was conducted by
two reporters from the bourgeois magazine "L'Espresso". This
version was taken from a British publication.]

We, the Red Brigades...
Noi, brigatisti, raccontiamo che...

The Story The Italian State Wants To Silence

     Two Italian journalists, Mario Scialoja and Giampaolo
Bultrini, of the weekly magazine L'Espresso, have been jailed for
conducting an interview with the Red Brigades during the time when
Judge Giovanni d'Urso was being held, and charged with
"complicity". Their suspected intermediary, Professor of
Criminology Giovanni Senzani, is on the wanted list.
     Judge d'Urso had a top secret in the Justice Ministry: the
transfer of political prisoners from jail to jail, as well as the
implementation of measures, which, according to the Red Brigades,
were aimed at the physical and psychological destruction of
prisoners. This was a response to the formation in prisons of
committees of action which the state had to suppress to prevent the
further politicization of detainees. Revolts have erupted in a
number of prisons in recent months. The government's failure to
find a political solution to the growing unrest has created an
explosive situation.
     The Red Brigades have claimed a victory following the kidnap;
all their demands have been met: the closure of L'Asinara prison,
the release of a "suspected terrorist" suffering from cancer, the
publication of statements written by prisoners in Palmi and Trani
in a number of national papers.
     This is only the second interview with the Red Brigades. The
first, in 1974, also created an uproar. This is the first
publication in Britain. The translation is by Jane Crichley and
Malcolm Imrie. We thank L'Espresso for permission to print it.

Q: After Aldo Moro (1), judge d'Urso. Doesn't this represent a step
backwards "strategically"? How do you explain the difference?

BR: Why? The Moro operation was part of a campaign against the
imperialist state which occurred in a very different period. It
marked the highest point in the phase of armed propaganda. It was
a matter of trying to instil a recognition of the necessity of
armed struggle in the proletariat. The kidnapping of d'Urso, on the
other hand, takes place in a more advanced stage of confrontation
where the slogan of the guerrilla must be: win over and organize
the masses around armed struggle for communism.

Q: Why do you say that the present phase is more advanced?

BR: The depth of the imperialist crisis has revealed the alien
nature of the needs of capital to the working class. The
restructuration of capital in Italy - on all levels - drives whole
social layers into revolutionary struggle. The only things this
state can guarantee are super-exploitation, unemployment, misery
and prison. The needs of the masses and the proletariat - not only
strategic but immediate needs - are inexorably and violently denied
by a type of power whose only concern is its own survival. Their
struggle around their immediate needs transforms itself into a
confrontation with power. And that changes everything.

Q: But the events at FIAT (2) apparently showed the opposite...

BR: The struggle at FIAT expressed, spontaneously and on a huge
scale, its concern with workers' power and autonomy, which in no
way signifies the end of illusions, but, on the contrary, the
beginning of a new cycle of struggles. These struggles have been
building up for over 10 years, even though they have seemed to
begin slowly and with difficulty. For the first time in the recent
history of class struggle in Italy, working class antagonism is not
expressed through demands that are merely greater than those put
forward by the unions, but by a desire for power in opposition to
the state's plans to destroy them; by a defence of those jobs which
maintain class unity; by a class autonomy in confrontation with the
unions and the revisionists, even when the latter try to control
the struggles for their own ends.

Q: So, in short, in your opinion the masses are ready to make the
revolution?

BR: We're not that naive. What we do say is that today the
objective and subjective conditions exist which can bring about a
decisive move towards civil war for communism. In other words, the
conditions exist which can give birth to revolutionary mass
organizations within the mass movement that is struggling against
restructuration, and these, along with the Combative Communist
Party (CCP) (3), make up the essential element of armed communist
power. That's what characterizes the change we've been talking
about. Our own political line must thus develop in this direction
and take charge of all the problems posed by the construction of
armed proletarian power.

Q: Does that mean that you want to control spontaneous struggles
for your own ends?

BR: No, it's exactly the opposite. We don't run around after every
outburst of proletarian anger but we try to understand that it is
the product of objective causes and of the fact that capitalism is
historically outmoded. So we have to build the alternative today.
And, starting from the tensions which run through the different
layers of the working class, from the content of their struggles,
we must prioritize the definition of "immediate programmes" around
which it is possible to extend the mobilization, to contribute to
the affirmation and to the consolidation of the revolutionary
groupings which are their basis.

Q: But isn't all this very similar to the theories of Workers'
Autonomy (4) - which until now you've rejected?

BR: Not at all. The CCP doesn't dissolve itself into spontanism. On
the contrary, it becomes more valuable by being a general reference
point. It must be the carrier of a general programme of transition
to communism, and it must understand how to make this programme
dialectic in relation to particular aspects of the struggles of
workers and proletarians.

Q: What's all this got to do with the kidnapping of d'Urso?

BR: The proletarians in prison could tell you that quite clearly.
There is a reality that the state's propaganda mystifies or
obscures. The present crisis has swelled the ranks of proletarians
who are not part of the production process; who are on the margins
of society; who earn no wages and can only survive outside
legality. The break-up of the working class, brought about by the
bourgeoisie at the expense of hundreds of thousands of
proletarians, has its military base in the imperialist prison: the
deadly attack launched by Agnelli and his "associates" against the
working class necessitates the incarceration and destruction of the
vanguard of workers and proletarians. The figure speak for
themselves: there are 35,000 proletarians in prisons, and more than
3,000 comrades held in concentration camps. (5)

Q: Does that mean that there's no longer any distinction between
common law and politics?

BR: The only criminals we recognize in this society are the
Christian Democrats and similar defenders of capitalism. The
proletarians in prison are an integral part of the metropolitan
proletariat and in the main they have identified their class
interests with the struggle for communism. Which is why the prison
politics of the state have completely failed. The imperialist
prison is certainly an important element in the bourgeoisie's
military organization, but it is also a place for the political
recomposition of the proletariat, and this fact is of great
importance to the relationship between revolutionary and counter-
revolutionary forces.

Q: You still haven't explained the relationship of all this to
d'Urso.

BR: At present the prison is the main instrument of counter-
revolution, and to attack the highest levels of the Ministry of
Justice and the men who control this instrument means we are
attacking "the heart of the state". Our success in kidnapping
d'Urso is already a great political victory which damages the
enemy's project. But that's not the main thing, what's important is
that this guerrilla action is dialectically linked to the movement
of proletarian prisoners and agrees with the objectives of the
immediate programmes of their struggle committees.

Q: What are the objectives of the d'Urso Operation?

BR: There are two. First, to strike a blow against the strategy
which aims to annihilate the proletariat and deal with this bastard
who's been handing out orders from the Ministry of Justice to his
minions. Secondly, but of importance too, is the fact that it's  a
party initiative whose aim is to open up new political spaces to
the movement of proletarians in prison, and to give this movement
-
whose legitimacy has been earned by thousands of initiatives - the
means to express itself. Finally this action must contribute to the
realization of the movement's objectives.

Q: Did you consider kidnapping other people instead of d'Urso?

BR: There are always lots of alternatives. As many as there are men
and structures of this regime. Sooner or later armed proletarian
power will deal with all of them. At the moment we have to
individualize, very precisely, the heart of the counter-
revolutionary project, and to aim our attacks at it. So it was with
Moro, and so it is with d'Urso.

Q: What are you searching to obtain in exchange for judge d'Urso?

BR: We are not asking for anything. We've nothing to ask for from
this regime. Our strategic goals have been clear for a long time:
to destroy every prison and to free every proletarian prisoner.
Unlike the regime we know very well how to evaluate the relations
of force. Moreover, it's one of the most obvious signs of the
crisis faced by the bourgeoisie that they are unable to recognize
that every war is made up of battles lost and battles won. And the
bourgeoisie has already lost this one.

Q: What is d'Urso's attitude?

BR: It's excellent. He is collaborating with proletarian justice.
He has told us about the plans to wipe out prisoners and he has
revealed names of his collaborators, be they close or distant.

Q: Is this operation going to last a long time?

BR: We oppose all prisons, even those in which we are forced to
keep the enemies of the people. D'Urso will stay with us as long as
is necessary, to try him, to establish his exact responsibilities
and thus to give judgement on him according to the criteria of
proletarian justice.

Q: You've kidnapped a man who didn't have an escort. Were you
afraid of deaths? Or were you trying to avoid a "military"
confrontation?

BR: Neither the one nor the other. Guerrillas act according to
political criteria. The level of military strength depended on
this. And we believe we have shown that there is no objective,
however well protected, that we cannot reach.

Q: Why have militants like Fioroni, Petci, Viscardi and, so it
seems, several brigadists from Genoa given information after
several years of being underground?

BR: We must be extremely careful in our choice of words because
counter-guerrilla psychology has deliberately muddled everything.
First of all, it has created a non-existent person: "the repentant
terrorist". There really haven't been any. The... (there appears to
be words missing from the document that this has been taken from -
the typist) ... lived as parasites on the revolutionary movement
have decided it is in their best interests to join the Carabiniers.
In this new role, their only merit in the eyes of their employers
has been to help them kill numerous comrades and to arrest many
others. These worms have done nothing but "confess" whatever was
useful to this regime in order to put hundreds of comrades in
prison. Such people are nothing but tragic puppets to whom even
proletarian justice couldn't give a minimum of human dignity. There
aren't many of them, but the price paid by the revolutionary
movement - because we didn't recognize them in time - is high. We
have already made a critical analysis of this problem and have
taken the necessary steps and adapted our selection criteria for
militants according to the new level of confrontation.
     We must distinguish the so-called repentant terrorists from
the case of certain comrades who, under torture, admitted their
involvement in guerrilla action. This incorrect behaviour has
implicated other comrades. Even in this case we can't speak of
repentance, but rather of certain people's incapacity to understand
the new conditions of class confrontation and the forms of
repression of the imperialist state. It is the task of the
revolutionary movement to clarify these differences, distinguishing
between the weaknesses that are part of our growth and the action
of our enemies.

Q: But surely we can no longer just talk of individual crises: in
these conditions how can you rule out the possibility of the
failure of a political line?

BR: Militarist and spontaneist hypotheses have gone into a state of
crisis and so have those people on the fringes who make reference
to armed struggle but have been incapable of understanding the
changes that have taken place in the confrontation with the
bourgeoisie. In fact, those who had considered armed struggle as a
form of struggle that was simply more radical than others, rather
than a long term strategy, when they were faced with the strength
of the regime's counter-offensive, remained politically disarmed:
in the end they confused their own failure with that of the
revolutionary movement. This has happened at the very moment when
the armed struggle has spread its own influence into large layers
of the proletariat and has historically opened the possibility of
making a great leap forward in the organization of proletarian
power. Finally, it is useful and necessary for the guerrilla to
come to terms with the problems created by the organization of the
masses around armed struggle, it is by its capacity to face up to
this task that the CCP will show that it is effectively communist
and combative. And today, whoever is incapable of seeing this
problem is driven into a profound crisis.

Q: So are you denying that there is a crisis in the Red Brigades?

BR: In the resolution of the Strategic Leadership in 1978 we had
already defined the central features of the current phase, but we
must admit to a certain delay in our criticisms and in our capacity
to fully assume the new tasks that the class movement imposed on
us. For example, we were lagging behind when just after the "spring
campaign" we understood what signified the end of the phase of
armed propaganda in its simplest form, that is, the necessity to
work in the different layers to give a concrete programme to the
revolutionary upsurges already existing in their midst, and on this
programme to determine the kind of leap forward which we had to
make to organize the masses. The great debate which has developed
in the last months, inside and outside the organization, has now
allowed us to reach a great clarity and to establish in the
Strategic Leadership's Resolution of October 1980 the fundamental
lines of current political evolution.

Q: How is it then, that the differences between the Strategic
Leadership and the Walter Alasia Column (WAC) (7) have been made
public ? Do these differences still exist? Did the Walter Alasia
Column participate in the kidnapping of d'Urso? 

BR: The political debate within the Red Brigades has never been
secret. It has been public and it has involved not only the
structures of our organization but the revolutionary movement. The
worst enemy which we have had to face in this period has been an
opportunist tendency running through the whole movement of armed
struggle which found a few partisans in our own ranks. To deal with
this enemy was vital in order to reach a new unity, to give a new
impetus to the whole of the movement.
     The Walter Alasia Column in its history and its traditions of
struggle is among the best of our organizations. Among its members,
some comrades wanted to persist in a militarist practice and they
had too a false conception of armed struggle. These comrades have
therefore gone their own way, but they no longer have anything to
do with our organization, nor with the WAC. Their confusion has led
them to indulge in stupidly provocative acts. The WAC will also be
able to throw light on this matter, admitting mistaken positions
and with the greatest openness towards sincere revolutionaries.

Q: Looking back, do you think that the decision to execute Moro was
a mistake?

BR: The very fact that you ask this question after 3 years is
already part of the answer. If after so long the gaps in
imperialist power opened up by this action are still not closed
again, then that is the proof that this action has been crowned
with success.

Q: Why did you say nothing when some militants, arrested during the
raids of the 7th of April (8), were accused of being members of the
Red Brigades Strategic Leadership?

BR: There were arrests on the 7th of April, 8th of April, 9th of
April... every day the cops and the Carabiniers arrest dozens of
comrades. Because the essence of the imperialist state strategy is
the annihilation of the revolutionary movement. It is this strategy
that the Red Brigades are trying to smash in creating the
alternative of armed proletarian power. Talking with an imbecilic
and reactionary judge doesn't exactly correspond to our political
orientation! In order to understand the relationship that we have
with the magistracy you only have to remember the names of the
judges who we have punished.

Q: How do you assess the "repentant terrorists" and why does this
problem not seem to bother you?

BR: It's not true that it doesn't bother us. We have already said
that the "repentant terrorist" doesn't exist. It's a pure invention
of the regime. The attention that we give to spies and traitors is
the same as you give in general to fleas; we crush them. Their fate
has already been made crystal clear in the prisons at Nuoro, Nuove,
etc.... Such people must live in fear of their own shadows: without
doubt, they're reduced to the state of walking corpses.

Q: It is true that the defeats suffered by Primea Linea and other
small terrorist groups have lead to a rush of militants into your
own ranks?

BR: The experience of the revolutionary movement in recent years
has developed into different organizational forms, each of which
expressed - certainly in a partial manner - the hopes and the needs
which came from the different components of the metropolitan
proletariat. You only have to think of the experience of the NAP
(9) and what it represented for the proletariat in prison. Whoever
works to build the party must know how to reassemble all these
experiences in a great unitary project. That is what the Red
Brigades have always done.

Q: What do you think about the calls to desert that have come from
within the armed party?

BR: A few young rejects from the bourgeoisie thought they were able
to play at class war during their holidays. Today, as the
confrontation with the bourgeoisie becomes more and more acute -
precisely because the conditions are ripe for a great advance in
revolutionary movement - the bourgeoisie is telling its sons to
come home. We'd certainly like to desert the production line, work
which is dangerous, sometimes fatally so; to get rid of
unemployment and the ghetto districts; to escape the violent
alienation of this society. But that can't be done by "whining to
daddy". To free ourselves from this misery, we must attack and
liquidate this regime and build a communist society. Desert? Don't
joke. We're only just beginning.

Q: Some people have called for an amnesty. In our opinion, would an
amnesty stop the escalation of violence and make the confrontation
less "barbarous"?

BR: Imperialism is counting on extermination and its concentration
camps to give it any chance of survival. It is this regime that is
violent and barbarous, it's the Christian Democrat gang and their
lackeys who are bloodstained. It is impossible even to begin to
imagine a peaceful society while people like that exist on earth.

Q: How did you know Aldo Moro's itinerary when you kidnapped him?
Some observers are convinced that you had an informer, voluntary or
involuntary in his family or close friends.

BR: In the last 10 years we've existed you've never understood that
the knowledge of the proletariat and guerrilla organization can
solve all of these sorts of problems. It is both a question of
political will and of a conception of organization adequate to the
rhythms of proletarian revolution in the imperialist centres. To
prepare and carry out the Moro operation we only used - as always
-
these methods.

Q: Did you think that you might have been able to free Moro? On
what conditions would you have freed him?

BR: You are so used to constructing the regime's truth that you are
completely imprisoned by your own mystifications. Throughout the
operation we published 9 perfectly clear communiques raising the
question of the communist prisoners and demanded the release of a
certain number of them. If we had received a positive response we
would certainly have freed our prisoner.

Q: In his letter Moro never mentioned the guards who were escorting
him when he was kidnapped. Why was this?

BR: Because he didn't care about them.

Q: Is it true that the Brigade members who were holding Moro
delayed his execution for 48 hours?

BR: It's not true.

Q: Did you tell Moro of your decision to execute him? How did he
react?

BR: He was informed. You can look at his memoirs that we published
to find out his reaction. Because he was a Christian Democrat he
was well aware of the nature of his "friends" in the party, and he
had no illusions about their responsibility for the fact that we
didn't suspend the sentence.

Q: Is it true that in order to suspend Moro's execution all that
was needed was a declaration from Fanfani (10) that it was possible
to open negotiations?

BR: The problem we raised was that of prisoners. That is a
political problem that the regime's leaders, utterly terrorized,
didn't want to face. They thought they could get rid of the problem
by denying its existence. If you bear in mind the fact that this
question is central for the revolutionary forces - and the capture
of d'Urso shows it clearly - you can see in what way the passivity,
the non-line suggested by the American specialists to the Christian
Democrats was able to hinder the search for different solutions to
those we adopted.

Q: It's been suggested that at Moro's initiative one of his
colleagues gave you documents from his archives. Is that true and
what documents were they?

BR: We had nothing to do with anything like that. As regards
documents, those that we obtained with Moro were enough.

Q: Have you destroyed Aldo Moro's letters because people would
disapprove of them?

BR: No. Everything he wrote was made public.

Q: How do you explain the discovery of the flat in Via Gradoli?

BR: It was a stupid accident: one of the drain-pipes was rotten and
there was a flood. Why look any further when you know what Roman
property speculators are capable of!

Q: In some of your documents you denounce the fact that some
militants have been tortured. Have you any proof?

BR: It's a method currently used by the regime's minions. Almost
every captured comrade is taken under cover to a secret place and
undergoes brutal treatment. There's nothing surprising about it:
Cossiga's special laws sanction all these practices - complete
freedom for the carabiniers and the DIGOS(12) police to have
revolutionary militants at their mercy for four days. That's what
leads to torture. To take one example from many: comrade Maurizio
Iannelli, straight after his capture, was hooded and taken to a
flat where he was tortured for two days. Only his own behaviour
allowed these facts - which the regime's press tried to hide - to
come to light.

Q: Many political leaders from Zaccagnini to Berlinguer have said
that the Red Brigades are controlled, or at least helped, by parts
of the secret services. What's your response?

BR: These gentlemen should give us precise facts and proof of this
so that we don't take these statements as the products of their
feverish imagination. For us all the secret services are enemies of
the proletariat. To deny a reality which stops them sleeping, these
leaders have invented a fable of a foreign conspiracy. But they are
the only ones, and they are certain others of their kind, who
believe it. The proletarian war is developing with such inanities.

Q: Do the Palestinians of the PLO provide you with arms? If so, in
exchange for what?

BR: We believe that in the time of anti-imperialist proletarian war
a new proletarian internationalism must be reborn. Through concrete
solidarity; through militant aid; through political support among
the forces who fight for communism in the liberation struggle of
people against imperialist oppression. The rhetoric of revisionism
can only relate to the anti-imperialist movements as instruments to
be used for its own ends. This is not our conception: our
solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle against
Zionist imperialism is complete and unconditional. And it is not
the lies of those who used this struggle for their own ends that
will make us change our opinion.

Q: Have you any relationship with militants at the base of the PCI
who do not share their party's line?

BR: Irresistibly the PCI is identifying with the interests of the
bourgeoisie. The latter has given it the role of the State in the
heart of the working class. The Berlinguerians (PCI) are perfectly
happy with this role. And it is also true that this counter-
revolutionary fusion doesn't take place without contradictions. But
the false consciousness of the proletarians who still carry their
party card can only change when they realize the need to get out.
Our strategy is to win over every proletarian to the revolutionary
line of armed struggle for communism and to organize them to make
up the system of armed proletarian power. During this long process
the most backward fringes of the working class movement will also,
sooner or later, recognize their class interests.

Q: What is the social and political origins of new militants in the
Red Brigades?

BR: The same as always. We have our roots in the metropolitan
proletariat and our cadres come from its avant-garde. The problem
of the centrality of the working class is not sociological but
political. That is to say that it is around the interests of the
working class that all the other layers of the proletariat must
organize. It is not a metaphysical or idealist position. But it's
true that the comrades of the Red Brigades are mainly workers.

Q: Do you have any contacts with Albania?

BR: No.

Q: What do you think of Soviet and Chinese communism? Do you have
a model of communist society that already exists in mind and can
you explain the kind of future society for which you are fighting?

BR: The problems of building a communist society are not laboratory
experiments on which one can pontificate. They are movements which
concern millions of individuals in the world. Our reference points
remain Marxism-Leninism and the Chinese cultural revolution. We do
not consider communism as a model but as a long process on a world
scale which requires historical answers and not pompous judgements.
None of which stops us saying that those who practice a politics of
expansionism and of oppression - whatever names they use - belong
to the imperialist camp.

Q: Do you think you are able to unleash an insurrectionary movement
in Italy?

BR: We don't think in terms of insurrection. We believe on the
contrary in the historic possibility of building a system of armed
proletarian power through a long term process. The accumulation of
proletarian power through the politico-military organization of the
CCP and the mass revolutionary organizations, will take up a whole
period of history. Undoubtedly this won't happen in a linear way
but by dialectical breaks. And finally the full use of
revolutionary war will destroy the bourgeois State and construct
the communist society. It's not a matter of simply of a hope but of
a certainty nourished by the desires of the proletariat.

Q: Riccardo Dara (13) who led one of your columns, adopted,
according to the "repentant terrorists" of Genoa, particularly
violent methods. He even practiced blackmail. Is that true?

BR: It is the foulest invention of counter-guerrilla psychology. He
was a great leader of our organization, loved and esteemed. With
his humanity, his capacity to live as a communist with others, his
solidarity towards comrades in their most difficult moments, he
gave us more than the lackeys of the regime could ever imagine. We
are proud to have had him at our side for all these years.

Q: Doesn't the assassination of workers trouble your conscience?

BR: The Red Brigades have never killed innocent workers. This has
never happened. Not even by accident. But if you are referring here
to mercenaries in uniform who have sold their class identity to the
bourgeoisie, thus betraying their own origins, and who are then
transformed into the vicious murderers of workers, then we have no
pity for them. And we would advise them to change their occupation.
We must reiterate that.

Q: Does General Della Chiesa (14) seem to you to be an able and
dangerous rival? In short, an enemy worthy of respect?

BR: No. He is simply a minion to whom the state has given a maximum
amount of power.

Notes:

(1) Former Prime Minister and President, Christian Democrat Aldo
Moro was captured in Rome by the Red Brigades on the 16th of March
1978 and executed on the 9th of May.
(2) Last October thousands of workers at FIAT revolted against
their own unions who had accepted the management's redundancy
plans.
(3) A general title for the Red Brigades and their supporters.
(4) Particularly those of Tony Negri.
(5) Italy has 35,000 common law prisoners and approximately 3,000
political prisoners from the revolutionary left.
(6) Linked to the "Strategic Resolution " (published Spring 1978)
(7) Walter Alasia, member of the Red Brigades, was killed by the
carabiniers (para-military police) when he opened the door of his
flat to them in Milan in 1978.
(8) The 7th of April 1979 marked the beginning of a number of
police raids in autonomist circles and led to the arrest, among
others, of Professor Tony Negri, accused at the time of being the
"brain" of the Red Brigades. This charge was abandoned several
months ago although further charges have since been made.
(9) Armed Proletarian Nuclei, set up in Naples in 1974 and
particularly involved in the struggle against prisons. The NAP
rejoined the Red Brigades at the beginning of 1978, after suffering
numerous setbacks.
(10) Fanfani is currently President of the Italian Senate and has
many times been Prime Minister and Christian Democrat National
Secretary.
(11) In Rome, where an "arms cache" was discovered and where
members of the Red Brigades who had participated in the kidnapping
of Moro lived.
(12) Political police.
(13) Head of the Genoa Column of the Red Brigades.
(14) Last year he was made head of carabiniers for the North of
Italy and put in charge of all anti-terrorist operations.

Captions for pictures that accompanied this interview.

(1) Renato Curcio, above, with Nadia Mantovani, is one of the
"historic leaders" of the Red Brigades, one of a number of students
in the Sociology Department of Trento University who played an
important role during the student unrest of the 60's and later
joined clandestine organizations.
(2) An injured prisoner after the assault on Trani prison. 85
detainees have now been charged with complicity in the kidnap of
Judge d'Urso. This is because the Red Brigades commando who
kidnapped the judge issued a statement saying that, following his
questioning, the sentence was to be passed by the prisoners
themselves. In their statement prisoners said judge d'Urso was
"guilty" but was to be released if the media agreed to publish
their statements.
(3) The Italian equivalent of the SAS in training with an Augusta-
Bell helicopter before their assault on Trani prison. "Made in
Germany" was the comment of the Italian press.