Aldo Semerari
[3] In 1962, Semerari came to public attention when he was asked to provide a psychiatric analysis of the writer and film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was then on trial for attempting to steal two thousand lire from a petrol station.
"[4] Having neglected to interview Pasolini in person, Semerari did not succeed in getting his evidence accepted by the court, but his report's findings were published before the trial ended and repeated uncritically by sections of the popular press.
[9] Several news outlets later reported that his home contained a substantial collection of Nazi and Fascist memorabilia, including military uniforms and photographs of Hitler and Mussolini, which friends and associates dismissed in public as merely a hobby.
[10][11][12] Although never a prominent figure within the neo-fascist movement, by the late 1970s Semerari had become one of the leaders of a small group of fellow ultra-right intellectuals and agitators called "Let's Build Action" (Costruiamo l'azione).
[15] Alongside the former Italian Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Italiano; MSI) parliamentarian Fabio De Felice and history teacher Paolo Signorelli, Semerari also hosted a number of seminars with various far-right militants at around this time, which Jeffrey Bale suggests were convened to discuss a "new decentralized and self-financing terrorist strategy", modelled on the activities of the Red Brigades, that could "consolidate the remnants of various extremist groups" in the face of official state crackdowns and the flight of several neo-fascist leaders to "safer havens abroad".
[16] Bale notes that the seminars' participants frequently disagreed about which was the best route to achieve their goals, with Semerari and De Felice emerging as the leaders of a "traditionalist" faction that eschewed direct revolutionary action in favour of constructing a logistical base that would bring together like-minded militant groups and individuals.
"[20] In August 1980, Semerari was one of a trio of neo-fascist pedagogues − the other two were Signorelli and Claudio Mutti − arrested on suspicion of being involved in the bombing of Bologna Centrale railway station earlier that month, which claimed the lives of 85 people and wounded over 200 more.
[11] Pino Rauti, a leading figure on the neo-fascist right and a friend of Signorelli, announced in a press statement that the accusations regarding the culpability of Semerari and the other detainees were "fabricated by members of the Italian secret services to discredit the political right.
[22] During captivity he suffered (in the words of Ferraresi) a "psychological breakdown", which ensured that he remained a patient at the San Camillo hospital in Rome and (later) at his own clinic, the Villa Mafalda, even after being formally released from court supervision.
[22][23][24][25] A La Repubblica article, published in 1985, alleged that Semerari − who had been assaulted while in prison − lived in fear from this point onwards, as he believed that his erstwhile 'comrades' suspected him of having named those responsible for the Bologna bombing in order to secure an early release, and were planning on killing him in revenge.
[9] Three days later the offices of the communist newspaper l'Unità received a letter, signed by Semerari himself, which claimed that he was the man responsible for writing a notorious fake "official document" alleging that Vincenzo Scotti, a government minister, had visited Raffaele Cutolo in Ascoli Piceno gaol the previous year to seek assistance in rescuing a Christian Democrat politician, Ciro Cirillo, who had been held captive by the Red Brigades for several months.
In March 1985, during an investigation by the Public Prosecutor of Bologna into the 1980 railway station bombing, a former SISMI official named Demetrio Cogliandro (latterly head of counter-intelligence operations and known by the codename "Capemuorto"[32]) claimed that Semerari had sought help from the security services the day before he was kidnapped.
