On 27 April 1981, the Red Brigades (BR) kidnapped the 60-year-old Christian Democrat (DC) politician Ciro Cirillo and killed his two-man escort in the garage of his Naples apartment building.

[13][14] After two and a half months, the BR threatened to execute Cirillo unless the Naples city government accepted demands it refused in the past.

[17] Cirillo was released after 89 days on 25 July 1981, against the payment of a ransom of one and a half billion lire, thanks to the decisive intervention of Camorra boss Raffaele Cutolo.

[18][19] In return, Cutolo allegedly asked for a slackening of police operations against the Camorra, for control over the tendering of building contracts in Campania (a lucrative venture since the devastating earthquake in November 1980) and for a reduction of his own sentence, as well as new psychiatric test to show that he is not responsible for his actions.

When Moro was abducted by the BR in 1978, the DC-led government immediately took a hardline position: the "state must not bend" on terrorist demands.