Italy raid may have captured Moro kidnapper

Press, 8 April 1978, Page 7

Italy raid may have captured Moro kidnapper

NZPA-Reuter Rome The Italian police said; yesterday that they had ar-; i rested a 28-year-old woman I bearing a marked resem- ( ; biance to the lone female in 'the Red rigades squad that; kidnapped the former Prime I Minister, Mr Aldo Moro. ; The woman was arrested! ; during an operation by hundreds of police who searched ( jhon.es, hotels, and abandoned farmhouses in the; Naples area, detaining 15 people and arresting 4 others. The police said the suspect identified as Flora Pirri Ardizzone, aged 28, bore a marked resemblance to the only woman in the guerrilla squad that kidnapped Mr Moro on a Rome street on March 16, and killed his five bodyguards. In an isolated beach house where she was arrested with three men. the police found a small arsenal of guns and ( I ammunition, including a pis-1 tol cor '.ete with a silencer, , i equipment for forging! drivers’ licences, and a stack! of revolutionary documents!] of the underground Left-;; wing group. The Rome police were I; kept busy all Thursday night 11

(by four explosions in different parts of the city that ; damaged seven parked au- ; tomobilfs and two automobile showrooms and smashed a bank’s glass doors. There i were no injuries, and damjage was relatively small. The Vatican said yesterday that it could not act as ! a mediator for the release of ■ Mr Moro if the price of his (freedom involved freeing Mailed Red Brigades terroriists. I The Vatican, which earlier 'indicated willingness to act as a humanitarian go-be-tween, said in its weekly magazine that there seemed to be no room for mediation if the Red Brigades demanded a prisoner exchange. “It is to be feared that the question is posed in brutal terms: Moro against the impunity and liberation of terrorists- detained or on trial,” the magazine “Osservatore I Della Domenica,” said. “Posed in such terms, the! case is much more anguishing from a human view-’ ! point, and seems to offer! ino room whatsoever fori hypotheses and attempts at I mediation, but only for be-1 ! seeching, as Paul VI did onl Sunday, and — mav God grant this — for repentance,” the magazine said. ;