Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant'
16th March 2012, 11:21
Former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped in Rome, his escort of five police bodyguards were killed when he was snatched at gunpoint from a car near a cafe in the morning rush-hour. Gunmen jumped out of a white Fiat and others who had been waiting nearby raised pistols and sub-machine guns.
Chief police investigator Signor Moro said 12 gunmen took part in the attack on the former prime minister as he was being driven to parliament. .
The extreme left-wing Red Brigade, in a telephone call to a Rome newspaper, said it kidnapped the Christian Democratic leader, 61.
A spokesman said: "We kidnapped Aldo Moro. He is only our first victim. We shall hit at the heart of the state."
The man demanded that the Turin trial of Renato Curcio, who is suspected of leading the Red Brigade, and 14 others accused of membership of the group should be suspended. Trade unions called a 24-hour general strike and workers left many shops and offices in the city in a shocked reaction to the kidnapping of the much-respected statesman.
(The government refused all pleas from family, friends and the Pope Paul VI to concede to any demands.
Eight weeks after he was kidnapped, the body of Mr Moro was found riddled with bullets in the boot of a car in Via Caetani in central Rome. The Red Brigade was a left-wing terrorist group formed in 1970 with the sole aim of overthrowing capitalist Italy by violent means. Most of their leading members had been captured and imprisoned by the mid-1980s.)
Source - BBC History
Chief police investigator Signor Moro said 12 gunmen took part in the attack on the former prime minister as he was being driven to parliament. .
The extreme left-wing Red Brigade, in a telephone call to a Rome newspaper, said it kidnapped the Christian Democratic leader, 61.
A spokesman said: "We kidnapped Aldo Moro. He is only our first victim. We shall hit at the heart of the state."
The man demanded that the Turin trial of Renato Curcio, who is suspected of leading the Red Brigade, and 14 others accused of membership of the group should be suspended. Trade unions called a 24-hour general strike and workers left many shops and offices in the city in a shocked reaction to the kidnapping of the much-respected statesman.
(The government refused all pleas from family, friends and the Pope Paul VI to concede to any demands.
Eight weeks after he was kidnapped, the body of Mr Moro was found riddled with bullets in the boot of a car in Via Caetani in central Rome. The Red Brigade was a left-wing terrorist group formed in 1970 with the sole aim of overthrowing capitalist Italy by violent means. Most of their leading members had been captured and imprisoned by the mid-1980s.)
Source - BBC History