Moro hunt stepped up once again
NZPA-Reuter Rome Italy’s security forces have launched a new offensive in their 53-day hunt for the guerrilla kidnappers of Mr Aldo Moro. Only 24 hours after the Red Brigades urban guerrillas said on Friday that they would carry out the “death sentence” on the 61-year-old former Prime Minister, police raided the homes of known Left-wing radicals.
Twenty-three people suspected of having links with guerrilla groups were detained in Rome alone. The country’s politicians arc still clinging to vague hopes that the kidnappers might spare the life of the man many Italians regard as the most influential post-war Christian Democrat leader.
The Red Brigades have stayed silent since their terse communique on Friday, which said that Mr Moro was about to be killed for crimes committed against the Italian proletariat. The secretary of the ruling Christian Democrat
party (Mr Zaccagnini) tild a regional election campaign rally that the Government could not abandon hope that Aldo Moro would return to his family alive. At the same time he defended the Government’s
refusal to do any deal with the Red Brigades, who have demanded the release of 13 Leftist prisoners in exchange for Mr Moro. However the Italian Gov. emment has given Amnesty International, the Londonbased human rights organisation, permission to in* vestigate conditions in Italy’s top security jails. Italy’s militant Left spearheaded by the Red Brigades, has alleged that hundreds of Leftist prisoners are subjected to inhuman conditions in top-security jails. The Red Brigades have made this allegation one of the prime issues in their campaign to force the Government to negotiate the release of Mr Moro.
From Beirut, the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, has appealed to the Red Brigades to release Mr Moro “for the sake of democracy in Italy.” Radical Palestinian guerrilla groups based in Beirut are reported to have had discreet contacts with the Red Brigades during the last few years.
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Press, 8 May 1978, Page 8
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318Moro hunt stepped up once again Press, 8 May 1978, Page 8
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