Brigades strike as Italy awaits trial result

Press, 23 June 1978, Page 6

Brigades strike as Italy awaits trial result

! NZPA-Reuter Turin;, I I Red Brigades gunmen shot; I dead an anti-terrorist police-; ;man on Wednesday as 15 of i I their comrades were waiting.! for the verdict at the end of; I ■ one of Italy’s most blood-11 'stained trials. ! Two members of the far-, I Left guerrilla group boarded a crowded bus in Genoa, i early on Wednesday and'l pumped at least 10 bullets 1 into the city’s former anti- 1 terrorist squad chief. An- ■ tonio Esposito, who was 35. , He died almost instantly I

as horrified passengers dived for cover. The murder, which the Brigades later described as an set the scene for the expected finale at the trial in Turin of the 15 founders of the guerrilla group. The trial was postponed twice, after guerrillas gunned down Genoa’s chief public prosecutor and the Turin Law Society president, and finally began in a blaze of publicity last April 4, 19 days after the Brigades kidnapped the former Prime Minister, Aldo Moro.

ci; Verdicts are expect’d today (N.Z. time). e. The . 15, the Brigades is founder, Renato Curcio, and e 14 lieutenants, who called it the assassination of Moro 5 “an act of revolutionary jusa tice,” have said they will view the verdicts as irreled vant. - ta a statement read to rhe i- court on Monday the 15 disci missed the accusations of d; subversion and said it was; flan honour to be called a, 9(Brigades member. -I The .public prosecutor has! e demanded three to 15-yeail jail terms for them and five I • others on the run. A further 26 defendants; are facing minor charges,! but the prosecutor has asked, that 13 be acquitted for lack! of evidence. The trial, which became ,one of the toughest tests of; I Italian justice, continued ml , the face of the 54-day drama] over the kidnapping of Mr' Moro, w’ho had been Prime! Minister of Italy five times. I The Brigades killed Mr Moro on May 9 after the Government refused to exchange him for four of the . defendants at the Turin trial. ) including Curcio, and nine other jailed Leftists.