At 10:25 CEST, a time bomb hidden in an unattended suitcase detonated in an air-conditioned waiting room at the Bologna station, which was full of people seeking relief from the August heat.

The only applause was reserved for President Sandro Pertini, who arrived by helicopter in Bologna at 5:30 pm the day of the massacre and tearfully said: "I have no words; we are facing the most criminal enterprise that has ever taken place in Italy.

[5] The government, led by Christian Democratic Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga, first assumed that the incident was due to an accidental explosion of an old boiler in the station's basement.

[9] Generals Pietro Musumeci, a member of Propaganda Due (P2), and Belmonte of SISMI had a police sergeant put a suitcase full of explosives on a train in Bologna.

He was charged with falsifying evidence to incriminate Roberto Fiore and Gabriele Adinolfi, two leaders of the far-right Terza Posizione who had fled to London.

Among those arrested were Massimo Morsello (future founder of the neo-fascist organization and political party Forza Nuova), Francesca Mambro, Aldo Semerari, Maurizio Neri, and Paolo Signorelli.

Gilberto Cavallini, Fachini, Fioravanti, Egidio Giuliani, Marcello Iannilli, Mambro, Giovanni Melioli, Picciafuoco, Roberto Raho, Rinani and Signorelli were charged with forming an armed gang.

Marco Ballan, Giuseppe Belmonte, Fabio De Felice, Stefano Delle Chiaie, Fachini, Licio Gelli, Maurizio Giorgi, Pietro Musumeci, Francesco Pazienza, Signorelli and Adriano Tilgher were charged with subversive association.

Cavallini, Fachini, Fioravanti, Giuliani, Mambro, Picciafuoco, Rinani and Signorelli were convicted of forming an armed gang; Iannilli, Melioli and Raho were acquitted.

Ballan, Belmonte, Felice, Delle Chiaie, Fachini, Gelli, Giorgi, Musumeci, Pazienza, Signorelli and Tilgher were acquitted of subversive association.

The court also acquitted other defendants, canceled the judgment and ordered a new trial because the sentences were "illogical, incoherent, not assessing proofs and evidence in good terms, not taking into account the facts preceding and following the event, unmotivated or poorly motivated, in some parts the judges supporting unlikely arguments that not even the defense had argued".

[18] In June 2000, Massimo Carminati (NAR member), Ivano Bongiovanni (far-right sympathizer) and Federigo Manucci Benincasa (SISMI officer) were convicted of obstruction.

[citation needed] In an article written by Alfio Bernabei for the British anti-fascist Searchlight magazine in April 2022, it was reported that "In a significant step in search for the truth behind the bombing at Bologna railway station that killed 85 people and wounded 200 on 2 August 1980 the far-right militant Paolo Bellini has been found guilty of direct involvement in the massacre.

The hearings at Bologna law Court began in April 2021 presided over by Judge Francesco Caruso with a number of lawyers acting on behalf of the Association of the Families of the Victims.

[24] In 2005, Carlos the Jackal said that "the Mitrokhin Commission attempts to falsify history" and "they were the CIA and the Mossad to hit in Bologna" with the intent to punish Italy for its relationship with the PLO.

[27] During a 2008 BBC interview, former Italian president Francesco Cossiga reaffirmed his belief that the massacre was attributable to Palestinian resistance groups operating in Italy (rather than fascist right-wing terrorism) and in the innocence of Francesca Mambro and Valerio Fioravanti.

[31] Relatives of the victims formed the Associazione dei familiari delle vittime della strage alla stazione di Bologna del 2 agosto 1980 on 1 June 1981 to raise and maintain awareness of the bombing.

[33] In February[34] and July 2020,[35] the Italian weekly L'Espresso published a reportage claiming the couple Licio Gelli-Umberto Ortolani financed the terrorists of the bombing and subsequently took care of the necessary red herrings thanks to the support of Federico Umberto D'Amato.

The 2017 French novel, which satirizes late-20th-century Parisian intellectual and political life,[39] involves two detectives investigating what they assume to be the murder of the philosopher Roland Barthes.