Italian terrorist police find death hide-out

Press, 3 February 1982, Page 8

Italian terrorist police find death hide-out

NZPA-Reuter Rome The Italian police had discovered a flat in Rome where they belived that a former Prime Minister, Aldo Moro was ‘held before his killing by Red Brigades urban guerrillas in 1978, the Interior Minister (Mr Virginie Rognoni) said yesterday. The previously unknown hideout was identified on the basis of information supplied by a guerrilla of the Leftwing extremist group, Mr Rognoni told Parliament. Subject to confirmation, the Moro prison was on Via Laurentina in South Rome, he said. Mr Moro was seized by the Red Brigades on March 16,

1978, and held for 54 days before being shot in the chest and dumped in central Rome. The Italian police, reorganised after criticism of their failure to find Mr Moro alive, last week rescued Brigadier-General James Dozier and arrested his five Red Brigades captors in a 90-second. commando raid on a Padua flat.

During a continuing antiguerrilla sweep, the police have arrested more than 20 suspected Red Brigades members and sympathisers, mainly in north-west Italy, and discovered eight of their hide-outs.

The tip about Mr Moro’s prison came from a guerrilla

arrested during this action, Mr Rognoni told Parliament. Senior investigators have said all along that the extremist group probably kept their famous captive in Rome for the whole of his imprisonment.

Earlier, Mr Rognoni said that between Thursday and Saturday the police had arrested 23 people in northwest Italy and discovered a quantity of arms and Red Brigades material. The police had also discovered at Gemona, in Udine province, the Red Brigades' prison of the Montedison executive, Giuseppe Taliercio, who was kidnapped and killed last year.