Alessandro Alibrandi

Alessandro Alibrandi (1960–1981) was an Italian neofascist terrorist who was active in the organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (Armed Revolutionary Nuclei). He was killed during a firefight with the police in Rome.

Alessandro Alibrandi
Born12 June 1960
Rome, Italy
Died5 December 1981
Rome
Cause of deathAssassination
Other names"Ali Baba"[1]
OrganizationArmed Revolutionary Nuclei
Known forActs of terrorism
Political partyex-MSI
MovementNeofascism
Opponent(s)Italian left and extreme left;
Italian state
Parent(s)
  • Antonio Alibrandi, judge (father)

Early life and family

Alessandro Alibrandi's father Antonio Alibrandi, came from a wealthy family of Civitavecchia landowners. In his days as a law student student in the Facoltà di Giurisprudenza (jurisprudence faculty), Antonio Alibrandi was a far-right activist. He entered the judiciary in December 1953 and rose to serve as investigating magistrate in the Rome justice system for a period of fifteen years.[2] Antonio and his wife had three children: Alessandro, born on 12 June 1960, Cristina, and Lorenzo.

Alessandro enrolled in the Liceo Scientifico Statale John Fitzgerald Kennedy high scool, in the Monteverde area. It is said that he sometimes used to walk around the Liceo corridors with a gun tucked over his trouser belt.[3]

Political militancy

Alessandro became active in the neofascist party Movimento Sociale Italiano or MSI (Italian Social Movement) from an early age, first in its Fronte della Gioventù (Youth Front), and then in the FUAN (Fronte universitario d'azione nazionale, University Front of National Action).[4]:76 Along with schoolmates and friends Valerio Fioravanti, Massimo Carminati, and Franco Anselmi, who were all equally frustrated with what they perceived to be apathy on the part of MSI on the face of "communist aggression,"[note 1] Alessandro Alibrandi, nicknamed "Alibaba,"[1] quickly gravitated towards armed action.

Armed militancy

On 30 September 1977, a group of MSI activists ran out of the party offices at Medaglie d'Oro to chase after people who were outside distributing anti-fascist leaflets. According to a subsequent testimony in 1981 by convicted neofascist terrorist and pentito Christiano Fioravanti, he and Alibrandi, who were among the MSI militants, gave chase to twenty-year-old student Walter Rossi and killed him in via Elio Donato, with the same 9mm pistol which they passed among them.[5][6]

In late 1977, Alibrandi, Giuseppe Valerio "Giusva" Fioravanti, Francesca Mambro, Christiano Fioravanti, Massimo Carminati, Franco Anselmi, Dario Pedretti, Luigi Aronica, and other far-right militants, most of them former MSI members, formed the group Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (Armed Revolutionary Nuclei).[7]:29 In his testimony as a pentito, Christiano Fioravanti later reported that NAR were never a "structured, hierarchical" organization "like the Red Brigades" and that the acronym was used by a number of neofascist armed militants for their actions.

On 28 February 1978, the third anniversary of the death of Mikis Mantakas, a Greek student and member of MSI's student front who was killed in a clash with left-wingers, Alibrandi along with other NAR members, including the two Fioravanti brothers, reached Piazza Don Bosco, near the Cinecittà district, where they ambushed a small group of young communist militants and killed Roberto Scialabba, an electrician worker.[8]

On 27 November 1979, Alessandro Alibrandi, along with NAR members Valerio Fioravanti, Giuseppe Dimitri and Domenico Magnetta,[9] robbed at gunpoint the Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Rome, while Massimo Carminati acted as getaway driver. By this time, NAR, through the mediation of Franco Giuseppucci and Danilo Abbruciati, had connected with the crime organization Banda della Magliana who acted as money launderer for NAR's robbery loot.[10]

The law endorcement authorities were closing in on Alibrandi and his comrades, so he left the country in 1981 and enlisted in the Maronite militia of the Phalange, in Lebanon. There he trained with the Lebanese whose trainers ostensibly included Tsahal personnel.[11] A SISDE report dated 25 June 1981 and signed by SISDE vicedirettore Vincenzo Parisi, which was leaked in 2020,[11] stated that Alibrandi had at one time been treated for unspecified wounds in the Israeli military hospital in Nahariya.

Following the arrests of the Fioravanti brothers and others, he returned to Italy in June 1981[11] to "form the new NAR."[12] The next target was DIGOS officer Francesco Straullu who was being accused in far-right media of "torturing" neofascists caught by the police. Straullu and officer Ciriaco Di Roma were driving in their car through the Acilia frazione, on 21 October 1981, when they were ambushed and assassinated by Alibrandi and other NAR members.[13]

Death

On the morning of 5 December 1981, Alibrandi was killed during a firefight with policemen.[14] That morning, a group formed by Walter Sordi, Pasquale Belsito, Ciro Lai, and Alibrandi, went looking for a police patrol to disarm and take their guns. They set up on a bench near the Labaro train station, on the Via Flaminia, near Rome, when a police car passed them at slow speed and then suddenly reversed back towards them. Alibrandi immediately opened fire shooting at the car.[14]

One policeman, 21-year-old Ciro Capobianco, was hit in the lungs while inside the patrol car. He would die two days later in the hospital.[15] Another policeman got out and ran behind a corner at the train station from where he started returning fire. The third policeman, Salvatore Barbuto, ran to a nearby restaurant chased by Sordi whose firing wounded him in the ribs. The injured policeman fired back and hit Alibrandi who fell to the ground, mortally wounded. The NAR unit, in a car that they stole on the scene, disappeared towards Rome, leaving behind Alibrandi.[16]:1031

Aftermath

The funeral of policeman Ciro Capobianco at San Gennaro in Naples was attended by a large crowd of people[17]:1 and the President of the Republic Sandro Pertini.[17]:8 In 2005, the State bestowed posthumously upon Capobianco the Gold Medal for Civil Valor.[18] Salvatore Barbuto, by that time police chief inspector, was awarded in 2010 the State's Medal for Civil Valor.[19]

Italian neo-fascists organized on 5 December 1998, on the anniversary of Alibrandi's death, a memorial concert in the far-right social center "PortAperta," that was also attended by his father Antonio and his brother Lorenzo.[20] In a 2013 interview, Massimo Carminati, an old acquaintance of Alibrandi and at that time leading the Mafia Capitale, claimed that Alibrandi was killed by friendly fire, relating what he was ostensibly told by "eye witness" Lorenzo Lai. Carminati's claim, however, contained errors, such as mistaking Lorenzo for Ciro Lai who actually participated in the 1981 Via Flaminia firefight.[1]

See also

Notes
  1. Invoking episodes such as the 1973 Primavalle fire.

References
  1. "Le rivelazioni del nero: Alessandro Alibrandi colpito per sbaglio e ucciso dal fuoco amico" [Black revelations: Alessandro Alibrandi accidentally shot and killed by friendly fire]. La Repubblica (in Italian). 7 December 2014. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  2. Bocchino, Italo (18 September 2018). "Antonio Alibrandi, il giudice gentiluomo ricordato così da colleghi, amici e figli" [Antonio Alibrandi, the gentleman judge as remembered by colleagues, friends and offspring]. Secolo d'Italia (in Italian). Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  3. Colombo, Andrea (2007). Storia nera. Bologna, la verità di Francesca Mambro e Valerio Fioravanti [Black Story: Bologna, the truth of Francesca Mambro and Valerio Fioravanti] (in Italian). Cairo Publishing. pp. 17–34. ISBN 978-8860520913.
  4. Bianconi, Giovanni (1 December 2007). A mano armata. Vita violenta di Giusva Fioravanti, terrorista neo-fascista quasi per caso [At gunpoint: The violent life of Giusva Fioravanti, neo-fascist terrorist almost by chance] (in Italian). Dalai Editore. ISBN 978-8860731784.
  5. Paola Staccioli, ed. (2005). In ordine pubblico. 10 scrittori per 10 storie [In public order. 10 writers for 10 stories] (in Italian). Fahrenheit 451. ISBN 978-8886095884.
  6. Bisso, Marino (2 June 2001). "'Walter Rossi fu ucciso da Cristiano Fioravanti'" ['Walter Rossi was killed by Cristiano Fioravanti']. La Repubblica (in Italian). Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  7. Giangrande, Antonio (2020). Amico Terrorista [Terrorist Friend] (in Italian). Antonio Giangrande. ISBN 978-8835880806.
  8. Barbera, Andrea. "Roberto Scialabba". Reti Invisibile (in Italian). Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  9. Brusini, Marzio; Sasso, Michele (24 February 2015). "Chi è l'uomo nero della Lega Nord amico di Massimo Carminati e Flavio Tosi" [Who is the Northern League fascist friend of Massimo Carminati and Flavio Tosi]. L'Espresso (in Italian). Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  10. D'Amato, Alessandro (14 December 2014). "Massimo Carminati, quel bravo ragazzo" [Massimo Carminati, what a brave kid]. neXt Quotidiano (in Italian). Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  11. "Le protezioni israeliane del neofascista Alibrandi" [The Israeli protections of neo-fascist Alibrandi]. Insorgenze (in Italian). 1 August 2020. Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  12. "5 Dicembre 1981 - La 'Bella Morte'di Alessandro Alibrandi" [5 December 1981 - the 'beautiful death' of Alessandro Alibrandi]. Scomunicado (in Italian). 5 December 2017. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  13. "L'agguato di Acilia, 21 ottobre 1981" [The ambush of Acilia, 21 October 1981]. Sistema Achivistico Nazionale (in Italian). Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  14. Gregori, Enrico (5 December 2015). "5 dicembre 1981: In un conflitto a fuoco con la polizia muore Alessandro Alibrandi, Nar" [5 December 1981: In a shootout with the police Alessandro Alibrandi of NAR dies]. Il Messaggero (in Italian). Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  15. "Schede/1981/Capobianco" [Files/1981/Capobianco]. Associazione italiana vittime del terrorismo e dell'eversione contro l'ordinamento costituzionale dello Stato (AIVITER) (in Italian). 22 October 2007. Archived from the original on 2007. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  16. Schaerf, Carlo; De Lutiis, Giuseppe; Silj, Alessandro; Carlucci, Francesco; Bellucci, Emilio; Argentini, Stefania (1992). Venti Anni di Violenza Politica in Italia: 1969-1988 [Twenty Years of Political Violence in Italy: 1969-1988]. International School on Disarmament and Research on Conflicts (in Italian). 2. Università La Sapienza. ISBN 978-8887242584.
  17. "L'Agente di Polizia Ciro Capobianco" [Police agent Ciro Capobianco]. L'Unita (in Italian). London. 1981. Archived from the original on 10 February 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  18. "Brevi storie di vittime innocenti della criminalità: Ciro Capobianco" [Brief stories of innocent victims of criminality: Ciro Capobianco]. Encyclopedia of Things (in Italian). Fondazione Pol.i.s. - Politiche Integrate di Sicurezza. 4 December 2017. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  19. Del Porto, Dario (14 May 2010). "La chiave della vita del ragazzo in divisa" [The key to the life of the boy in uniform]. La Repubblica (in Italian). Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  20. Onelli, Daniela (6 December 1998). "Musica e cori neri per ricordare il terrorista caduto" [Music and black choirs to remember the fallen terrorist]. La Repubblica (in Italian). Retrieved 1 December 2020.
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