Prima Linea
Following the 1969-70 large-scale series of industrial action in Northern Italy, the acts of civil disobedience and mass demonstrations often turned to violent confrontations between leftist militants and the law enforcement authorities of the Italian state.
[1] A movement of autonomist ideology was formulating among leftist youth in 1974, the same year that the organization Comitati comunisti per il potere operaio ("Communist Committees for Worker Power") moved to establish a "military network".
[3]: 18 During approximately the same time, some former members of Potere Operaio ("Workers' Power"), which had dissolved itself the previous year, came together with two groups of Milanese militants who had left Lotta Continua.
[3]: 18 According to analysis by the Italian state's internal security services, Prima Linea, instead of the "state-centric" approach, based on the "class-against-state" worldview of other militant groups, and particularly of the Red Brigades, supported a "social concept of the class war" shaped as a "historical conjunction between a fighting organization and the armed spontaneism of the masses".
[6] Three men and two women, all armed with pistols and assault rifles, stormed the Fiat offices, chained the employees present there, "expropriated" all the company money they found on the premises, and left, after writing with spray paint the name Prima Linea on the walls.
[10] Tognini, the first member of Linea to be killed, was described in the media as a "quiet person," a Banco di Roma employee always "conservatively dressed" who did not seem to have any interest in politics.
[11] On 20 January 1978, a group led by Sergio D'Elia, while attempting to liberate fellow members held at the Murate prison, faced a police patrol.
[12] On 15 May 1978, in the Quarto Inferiore frazione of Bologna, Antonio Mazzotti, personnel director of the Menarini plant, a factory that had just come out of prolonged and "tough" dispute with the workers' union, was shot and injured by three armed individuals.
In 2020, in a commemoration ceremony, the president of the Benevento province described Paolella as someone among "those who were dedicated to the implementation of a prison system in line with the fundamental principles of a democratic state".
On 29 January 1979, while driving to his workplace, he was shot dead by Sergio Segio and Marco Donat Cattin, who fired at the prosecutor, while Michele Viscardi and Umberto Mazzola acted as protective cover; Bruno Russo Palombi was the getaway driver.
Hours after the attack, a call was made to Milanese newspapers, claiming the assassination by the "fire unit Romano Tognini 'Valerio' of the communist organization Prima Linea.
[18]Beginning from 1979, the organization initiated also a campaign of wounding targets with gun shots, in actions such as the wounding of prison guard Raffaela Napolitano on 5 February, the shooting of Stanislao Salemme, a retired employee of the Social Security authority, on 22 June, the October crippling of Piercarlo Andreoletti, Praxis managing director, in Turin, the November raid of a youth detention center during which guard Sulvatore Castaldo was shot in the knees, and many others.
[19] On 13 March 1979, a group of two men and one woman stormed the offices of the Emilia-Romagna Journalists Association in Bologna, forced an employee and a reporter's widow who happened to be there in a room and set fire to the premises.
They kneecapped five instructors and ten students, and left, leaving behind a message honoring two organization members, Matteo Caggegi and Barbara Azzaroni, who had been killed in a firefight with the police in March.
[23] On 7 February 1980, William Waccher, a 26-year old surveyor from Battipaglia who used to be part of Linea's support & logistics network, was executed in a Milan street by his former comrades for treason.
During his interrogation, Waccher had revealed the involvement in the organization of his cousin Claudio and given the names of Marco Fagiano and Bruno Russo Palombi, "figures of the first rank."
The reason proclaimed by the organization, in a phone call to Ansa, was that Galli had been the lead investigator on Linea starting from September 1978, after the arrest of Corrado Alunni and the discovery of a safe house's contents in via Negroli, in Milan.
The other reason given for the "death sentence" was that the magistrate had "engaged in the effort to restructure the educational bureau of the Milan judiciary and make it efficient and suited to the needs of [the state].
"[25] On 11 August 1980, Brigadiere Pietro Cuzzoli and Appuntato Ippolito Cortellessa of the Viterbo carabinieria, were killed in Ponte di Cetti, a few kilometers outside Rome.
Their patrol had stopped a bus that was carrying among the other passengers six Linea members who had just robbed a bank in Viterbo and who engaged the officers in a firefight, during which terrorist Michele Viscardi was wounded and arrested.
On the basis of Viscardi's testimony, the police, in their words, "decapitated" Linea, arresting Susanna Ronconi and Roberto Rosso, and raiding five "safe houses" in Florence, Taranto, and Naples inside which the group kept documents and weapons.
[28] On 18 September 1981, Francesco Rucci, Brigadiere of the Corpo degli agenti di custodia prison police, while driving to work was executed by a group that identified itself in the flyers they left behind as "Communist Nuclei," a name that had been used for various operations by Linea.
[31] In 1982, a group led by Segio, detonated a car bomb parked along the walls of the Rovigo prison, the explosion causing the death of Angelo Furlan, a 64-year old pensioner who happened to pass by, and allowing Ronconi to escape.
[32] Beginning from the year 1980, which saw a peak of political violence at the same time as numerous urban guerillas repenting and collaborating with the state, there was intense debate inside Prima Linea as well as in other formations, about the merits of the armed struggle.
Several members went on to form the Comunisti Organizzati per la Liberazione Proletaria or COLP ("Organized Communists for the Proletarian Liberation") whose aim was to free jailed terrorists and "political prisoners."
On 10 April 2008, he was arrested in Milan for participating in attacks on mosques and Islamic cultural centers in the city, and of creating the "terrorist organization" called "Christian Fighting Front."
After being sentenced to life imprisonment, La Ronga "distanced" himself from the armed struggle and began collaborating with state authorities, marrying Linea militant Silveria Russo while they were both in prison.
Among the signatories were Lauro Azzolini, Corrado Alunni, Giulia Borelli, Susanna Ronconi, Roberto Rosso, and Sergio Segio who was asked by a journalist about how their victims should feel about this petition.
The petition to end the "never-ending story" was also signed by Carole Beebe, former member of the Italian Parliament with the Sinistra indipendente party [48] and widow of economist and academic Ezio Tarantelli who had been assassinated in 1985 by the Red Brigades.
[note 3][49] In 2009, the film La prima linea,[50] directed by Renato De Maria, was released, starring Riccardo Scamarcio and Giovanna Mezzogiorno.
