CONTENTS:

Preface by Leonardo Sciascia

The Courage of Fear

A City Under Siege

The Appointment With the Violent

Flowers in the Court Room

In the Bunker

The Next One Will Be Adelaide Aglietta

Justice For Giorgiana Masi, Justice For Marshal Berardi

The Via Fani Massacre

The Question of Self-Defense

The Debate Is Open

Tragedy in the Country, Illegality in Parliament, Boredom in the Courtroom

Curcio: An Act of Revolutionary Justice

Brother Machine-gun

The Referendum Campaign: The Schizophrenia of a Jurywoman

The Word Is With the Contending Parties

The Court Retires, My Job Is Finished

The Reason For This Book

ABSTRACT: Adelaide Aglietta, a woman of Turin, joined the Radical Party (PR) in 1974. After being active in the CISA (Italian Centre For Sterilisation and Abortion) for legalising and liberalising abortion and in the Piedmont branch of the Radical Party, she was the leading candidate on the Radical election list for Turin in the June 20, 1976 elections. The following November she was elected secretary of the PR and reconfirmed in that post for 1978 at the Bologna Congress. Her name was drawn by lots in March 1978 to be a juror in the Turin trial of the Red Brigades and she accepted the task after more than one hundred other citizens had refused it, thus allowing the trial to take place.

Thus Adelaide Aglietta was the first secretary of a party to be a member of a popular jury: her diary originates from this experience on the borderline between public and private life, from the tensions and the contradictions that are necessarily part of the role of juror, above all in a political trial.

At present she is a deputy to the European Parliament.

("DIARIO DI UNA GIURATA POPOLARE AL PROCESSO DELLE BRIGATE ROSSE" - Adelaide Aglietta - Preface by Leonardo Sciascia - Milano Libri Edizioni - February 1979)

JUSTICE FOR GIORGIANA MASI (1), JUSTICE FOR MARSHAL BERARDI

Saturday, March 11. On the way to the trial I chat with the taxi driver who has recognised me and expresses affectionate solidarity. He also lets off steam about the absurd militarisation of the city and curses the terrorists to whom he attributes no political validity. He criticises the buffoonery of the government crisis and the behaviour of the parties and says that the origin of all our ills is in the corrupt and closed administration of the DC as well as the other parties. As far as the trial goes he has little interest in it as do all the other people who have stopped to talk with me in this period. It rolls of everyone's back without being felt. In reality the attempts to affirm the necessity of this trial (above all by the Turin PCI [Communist Party, ed.]) as a clash between terrorism and the supremacy of the "state", have had the effect of accentuating the detachment of civil society from the institutions. The society does not feel this to be an occasion on which it is important to reaffirm a consti

tutional state, but as a clash between two equally extraneous realities.

At the Lamarmora barracks the captain in charge of the bodyguards insists on latching one on to me. I thank him, but I don't want it. Several of the jurors try to show me that it would be better if I had a bodyguard, but others (including some lawyers) say they are sorry they have them and envy me. I don't manage to make my position clear or to understand why it so difficult for them to get rid of them when it was so easy for me.

While we wait for the hearing to begin, the jurors talk and get to know one another and try to establish a relationship. What will establish itself in the first days of the trial is a climate of false familiarity based only on the common danger. Later it will turn into a forced relationship, unnatural, which at times will express itself in sophomorish behaviour of dubious taste, such as the habit, for example, of celebrating the passing of each month of the trial with a cake. At these times I have always withdrawn from the proceedings thus helping perhaps to create a slight feeling of unease between myself and some of the other jurors. What first strikes one is the prevalence of cliches both in ways of behaving and in the values apparently chosen as points of reference. This creates difficulties in really getting to know people. However, on that day a good relationship also gets started with one of the jurors with whom I will manage to talk seriously in the course of the trial about the rules of the gam

e, the Constitution, and civil rights. Together with this person I will find myself, almost isolated, defending several principles which I consider fundamental. Humanly he is very different from me. He appears closed up in a fatalistic diffidence in others and in society, without any room for hope in the possibilities of dialogue or of growth by means of this confrontation. By the end of the trial this state of mind will have reached dangerous levels of indifference and absence in him. As the days pass I will understand better that he is a person enclosed in his own world of imperatives connected to a concept of the constitutional State which supports him in almost all his actions. He believes so strongly in t these values of his that in the end they become a kind of barrier for communication between him and opportunists and the ignorant. The first reaction seems right to me, but the second appears to be one of his limitations.

As the hearing opens the defendants ask to read a communique. I make notes of the most significant points in order to telephone Gianfranco about them as he asked me to do.

"The "TRIAL" MUST BE HELD: That is what we want! And we want it in order to show that the proletarian revolution CANNOT BE PUT ON "TRIAL". In fact, the clash which is taking place in this courtroom is only one moment in the war between the imperialistic bourgeoisie and the metropolitan proletariat which polarises the combination of class interests, behaviour and aspirations...

...What is happening in Turin, the city you have chosen for sanctioning the historic defeat of the armed battle, is a proof of this. Here where the Imperialist Multi-National State has had its most important developments (on the one hand pushing militarisation to its highest levels and, on the other, entrusting the revisionists with the ideological control of the proletariat in the factories as well as in the neighbourhoods), the trial of armed struggle has exploded in its hands.

The mastodonic apparatus of men and machines, this display of "state terrorism", in which the military function does not manage to cover up the function of psychological warfare, did not keep an armed unit from executing one of the leaders of the local Anti-Guerrilla Corps. We want to make clear that this action should not be interpreted as a direct reprisal for the trial. It is rather a victory to be inscribed in the line of attack of the nerve centres of the imperialist state and, as it were, an episode in the revolutionary class war that breaks through the walls of this barracks, and whose effects will of course have repercussions on this trial. As for the rest, this same political clash taking place here has echoes in the Proletarian Offensive Resistance Movement: the attack on Radical Radio which ended with a unit of the Communist Combat Formation broadcasting a communique of struggle, solidarity and unity is a proof of this!

In this framework, there emerges with absolute clarity the reason for which WE DO NOT ACCEPT AND WILL NEVER ACCEPT any kind of regime attorney... With the Croce action the subject has not been closed, nor can this line of combat end before a definitive solution of antagonistic contradiction that sets us in opposition to attorneys of the regime as well as to that other militarised component of the trial which is the special jury."

The party's reply is immediate: From Rome, as soon as he knows the content of the communique, Gianfranco replies with a declaration which, naturally, no newspaper or the RAI-TV reports.

The killing of Marshal Berardi, the telephone communiques that claim responsibility for it, today's ninth communique written by the defendants in the Turin trial, all require an immediate reply by the non-violent Radical Party. And the immediate reply is: An end to political murder. Justice for Giorgiana Masi, killed by the state assassins; but justice too for Marshal Berardi, killed by the so-called revolutionary assassins.

The defendants today have affirmed in their ninth war proclamation that they want this trial to be held. The Radicals have fought in Parliament against many of the norms that have made it possible. We were against this kind of trial because it had been conceived as a test of strength between those who assume the role of representing the democratic state whereas, in fact, they represent nothing but the state of the Rocco codes (2) and the old and new Fascist laws, and those who assume the role of representing the [proletarian] class and the revolution, whereas they only represent the mad homicidal and suicidal policy. Both of them are actively creating an area of scorched earth for all hopes of democracy, dialogue and non-violence.

But we too, now that it has been called, want this trial to be held, because only in the trial itself can there be a clarification and discussion of its possible illegalities and irregularities. And because we feel that every killer should be tried.

Therefore we reject the threats that have been made repeatedly concerning the defense lawyers and the jurors. Not only Adelaide Aglietta, but all the jurors represent the popular will, and not the regime, to renew civil co-existence and law against the logic of terrorism. Their proof, in this case, is also ours. As pacifists who have been capable of confronting the violence of the state with civil disobedience, we will not remain inert in the face of these threats. Therefore we urge both the defendants of the Turin trial and those acting outside of the prisons and the courtroom to reconsider their proposals. It is an appeal that we make with the humility of those who do not believe in the existence of monsters but only those with different ideas and who believe in dialogue and reason. But at the same time that we are asking for a dialogue, we must firmly advise them that if they should fulfil their threats against any judge, juror or defense lawyer, we will consider ourselves committed, those of us who

are lawyers and the others as citizens, to assure that the trial is held.

The four missing attorneys are now named, this time chosen from among penal lawyers: there is Maria Magnani-Noya, deputy of the PSI [Socialist Party]. With the hearing adjourned I again face the photographers and journalists. While I wait for a taxi in a coffee bar, a walkie-talkie begins working underneath the loden coat of a plain-clothes man drinking coffee next to me (disguised as a journalist and acting as if nothing were happening). I look at him and laugh. He runs off fast.

In the afternoon I go to the extraordinary congress of the Piedmont Radical Party being held in the Gallery of Modern Art in Turin. My comrades are extremely affectionate with me and offer me every kind of collaboration from housework to a kind of non-violent bodyguard and any other kind of help that could be useful. When I am in the midst of people I become aware of how my security resides in that very fact. I finally manage to free myself from all forms of anxiety and suspicion. Gianfranco arrives in the late afternoon. I am as happy to see him as he is to be with me. The debate mostly turns on internal questions: the role of the regional party, of the associations, of the self-financing party. The discussion is on a relatively high level: there is the awareness of the need to anchor the struggles in the regions and the importance of generating regional autonomy. But I notice that I am quite detached from it all. It is possibly the first time that I experience this kind of difficulty (which will incre

ase with time until I reach a serious crisis). In part I feel isolated from the life and the activities of the party, and on the other hand committed to something that I am not used to and which I do not share with anyone. I feel almost split in two and with the growing need of more and more time and difficulty to catch up in both spheres.

Sunday, March 12. The children have gone to the mountains for two days. I spend the day at the Congress and then, in the afternoon, with Gianfranco. We try to clarify each other's ideas, to understand the situation. It would seem, then, that we have reached the point of a direct clash with the strategy of violence to which we must make a reply. It seems necessary to us to clarify our position with a document. Unfortunately, by now nothing having to do with the Radicals has the right to be reported. Never as in these days have our declarations and positions been so censored. In order for any information to pass it must either pertain to the majority, or it must be given some kind of cover such as "convenient opposition", or else one must shoot and cover the country with blood. We will talk to the people, make our decisions with the usual tables in the street, flyers, posters. Will this not be risky for our comrades? For Gianfranco that is just what makes the mobilisation valuable. We will soon call an as

sembly in Rome to talk with them about it. I will be present because there is going to be an adjournment in the trial for a week to allow the attorneys who have just been nominated to study the documents of the case.

Monday, March 13. The counsel of lawyers for the defense has been formed. The last one to be named is Gabri, the president of the bar association. Previously one of the last to be named was the hon. Magnani-Noya. During the intervals I talk to some of the lawyers whom I know. They joke, but they seem to me to be worried for their physical safety. In what they all have to say about the "value" of life they have very different reactions based on the "existential" choices of each. The most individualist of them, those who are most careful about gaining "security" for the future in exchange for the sacrifices they make, those who are most attentive to their careers and their families are obviously the ones who are most afraid. Those who are more disposed to live for the moment and without any particular expectations, who tend to see their lives as the possible legacy of others, seem to me to be less afraid. The hearing opens again. Ferrari (3) asks to read the tenth communique. It is curiously brief and the firs

t which deals with the problem (that will emerge at various times during the trial) of talks held through glass partitions:

1. We have rejected this farce which you call talks; but it is clear that we want to have talks and the battle to obtain them will continue.

2. We have observed the way in which you have finally put together the gang of regime attorneys. As with the special jury, the special attorneys too are a shoddy minority. You yourself have been obliged to recognise this fact.

3. The political line of the Red Brigades Communist Combatants leaves no doubt in this regard and it is defined unequivocally in communiques 1, 2, up to no.9 and in the action of the Revolutionary Movement.

4. Now we leave this barracks. Only three comrades of our organisation will stay on as observers of your counter-revolutionary activities.

Like all the defendants, Ferrari is accused of organising an armed band and of the kidnapping of Amerio and Labate, a Fiat official and a CISNAL (3) union official as well as lesser crimes. He has red hair and a red beard, is impulsive. I would say he is the least composed of the group, ready to accept and offer verbal battle even as a pretext. The public prosecutor Moschella offers him constant occasions for this. During the entire trial Moschella will oppose the reading of the communiques, often impetuously. At times he loses his self control and with almost hysterical reactions. He often winds up asking for the expulsion of the defendants from the courtroom, sometimes with no good reason. Even today I still do not understand if this behaviour was imposed by his role or his character. Perhaps for a trial of this kind a more balanced person would have been needed. Many times I will openly protest his attitude.

Often the public prosecutor's juridical arguments are difficult to understand. His explanations are ceremonious and complex even in their form. Already on this occasion the polemics explode. Barbaro tries to mediate between the diverse positions, to play them down. Moschella reacts to the defendants who accuse the talks with their relatives of being a farce because they take place behind glass partitions. It is a position (and it will be expressed often throughout the trial) that the judge and jury share. The former will try to unblock the situation with orders such as allowing the defendants to talk with their relatives during the intervals in the trial.

Ferrari calls the defense lawyers a "band of regime attorneys" and the jury a "special jury". Moschella jumps up to demand his expulsion from the courtroom. Ferrari announces that the defendants are deserting the courtroom and leaving behind three "observers". I do not understand why certain phrases, which by now sound like pure ritual, cause the reading of the communiques to be blocked. Between the lines of these communiques there can also be found hints for the defense and juridically significant elements that are useful to the jury. The trick of not letting the defendants speak and then attaching the communiques to the trial documents also seems questionable to me. This only creates tension in the courtroom.

The presiding judge calls for the reading of the report summarising the facts, the accusations, the charges brought and the process of the inquiry. For as much as I can tell (and my sensations will be confirmed by the reading of the ordinances of Caselli and the Milan court) the situation is made complicated by the unifying of three trials only connected to each other by the appeal to article 306 of the penal code (the organisation of and participation in an armed band). This is a fact that Barbaro will often underline in the course of the trial in tones even more than polemical. The inquiry is all based on circumstantial evidence, "proof" found in the hide-outs that are supposed to show that certain individuals belonged to the BR, and very rarely on concrete evidence of their having participated in the acts they are charged with. Even less precise are certain imputations made against lesser protagonists. For example, one of the recurring proofs against one individual or another is the fact of being in

possession of BR leaflets. But except in a few cases such material can be found in the houses of hundreds of people.

Also anomalous is the charge of belonging to an armed band made against those who wrote "Long Live the Red Brigades" with red spray paint on walls (but not even the witnesses were reliable). One individual is involved in the trial because during the search of a restaurant frequented by BR members he was found in possession of a knife. It is absurd. After Barbaro's report the hearing is adjourned.

I pass by the house to greet the children. I find them in a good mood with nice, tanned faces. They ask me about the trial even if, obviously, the affair interests them very little. I think that these questions are meant to reveal my state of mind to them. I stay with my mother a while (she has come to Turin) who appears emotional and most of all less worried because she can see me. She tries to insinuate some doubt about my involvement in the trial and to see if there is any chance I may pull out of it. In the evening I leave for Rome with a sense of relief. Getting away from Turin means leaving behind a heavy atmosphere, the "physicalness" of the trial, suspicion and fear. And this means being able to reason in an objective and relaxed way.

Tuesday, March 14. I arrive in Rome early in the morning. I feel as if I have come back to life, have awakened from a nightmare. I run to my house in Via Giulia. I had rented it together with Emma at the beginning of the year before deciding to suspend the party's national activities. I have practically never lived there except on these quick trips to Rome. I find Emma on her way out to take Rugiada to nursery school before going to Parliament. I meet her at the parliamentary group's headquarters in Via Degli Uffici del Vicariato. I hug Marisa and Mauro, talk with Roberto.  I spend a long time with Peppino Calderisi who has taken on the job almost single-handed of co-ordinating the action for the defense of the referendums. From a hydraulic engineer he has changed himself into a kind of constitutional engineer as Mauro puts it ironically (but with great esteem and affection). I am happy to be with these comrades again who, in general, feel the same towards me. Marco Pannella has written a lucid and signifi

cant article for "Panorama":

"Yes, we said it at once, at the very beginning of this affair. If they are intending to shoot us, to murder us, let them go right ahead. They risk nothing, or almost nothing, these hangmen that think they are avengers of justice and revolutionaries. The victims will be unarmed. We will not acquire arms or armed guards to defend ourselves. We will not tolerate that the unpunished murderer of Giorgiana Masi should mean endangering the lives of policemen or Carabinieri or special service agents to protect us. The course of our lives and our struggles will not change, not even in these days. Otherwise the simple threat of murder would already have changed our lives, it would already have snuffed out the thing for which the murder had been decreed. We will not accept, in short, the alternative of being either murderers or the murdered. Since it can generate and bind nothing but death, a life of that kind is already lost for authentic revolutionaries, libertarians, Socialists, and humanists like the pacifist

s of the Radical Party. Our strength does not stop growing. We are still an essential and victorious component of the Socialist alternative.

If the Red Brigades have decided to kill Adelaide Aglietta or any other of us Radicals in coming days they will do it. We are perfectly aware of this just as the journalists, politicians and administrators of the RAI-TV who are in agreement with this possible choice of the Red Brigades and therefore refuse to remove the cause of Adelaide Aglietta's choice as a prestigious victim in the series. If anything happens we will demonstrate how far these bandits of truth, these video thugs and brigadiers go in not limiting themselves to murdering democracy and republican legality daily, but actively concurring in the physical liquidation too of all non-violent and civil opposition. At which point they have already shot at Adelaide.

"The RAI-TV and the government power need the "Red Brigades" and Radicals in their TV and radio news broadcasts: but they want the former as murderers and the latter as victims. Alive we are dangerous and they need to abrogate us a bit every day by censorship and denigration - like the referendums. The government and the majority need to "represent" us to, they sincerely want unanimity. Cossiga - supported by the PCI - who commemorates Giorgiana Masi in the hall, accusing us of the moral responsibility and the "autonomi" (whom he sent) of the material responsibility for her death, is a perfectly emblematic element of the Italian political condition. The DC, PCI and the Red Brigades all fear the "armed party" of non-violence. It is the only one in almost twenty years that has won civil and democratic battles and shaken the foundations of the regime.

" I am not yet at all sure that this time too the "autonomi" of the Red Brigades are truly independent of the national and international secret services. But if they are, I am not sure they have the desire and consider it right to shoot at sitting ducks like us; but we will very soon see...

"This is not the first time that Adelaide is literally risking her life to fight against the death of justice, of others, of us and of herself. We have always lived threatened and struck by the violence of the institutions and the violence in society that ensues from it. We have always maintained that whoever murders legality prepares for terror and massacres, that whoever kidnaps and rapes truth, democracy, honesty, law and rights - whether he does so in the name of the Church, the State, the party be it clerical, Fascist or Stalinist - is at the root of disorder and catastrophe. Against such as these we have always fought.

"People know that in our bodies and our lives, beginning with Adelaide's - because it is of her we are speaking today - months-long hunger strikes or thirst strikes have left marks much worse than if we had been shot in the legs or non-vital organs with bullets. Anyway, every month of a hunger strike burns up years of life, compensated perhaps - that is true - by others that are won or won back with the practice of love and hope. Science, medicine, the documents of clinics, and not only Italian ones, show it. But the ignoble and vulgar baying which has made something like a national sport of denigrating the non-violent and their methods and to discredit them with the people who are primarily intended to receive this message from the "armed party" of non-violence. We are loathed by the top levels of the political parties inasmuch as we do not have dozens of assassinations to our credit but only the divorce law, the referendums, the rights of conscientious objectors, all enclaves of liberty and liberation

, all victories that were considered impossible. And everyone knows that the more we are isolated from the halls of power, the more we are popular among the people.

The radicals will make their decision in the next few days. But we will not remain inert, we will not submit to blackmail, we will by no means allow threats, fear, and assassination as a method of political and social struggle to have their way. We have never allowed this to happen. If procedural flaws have nullified the Turin trial, it is evident that the only conclusion it should reach is its own conclusion. But if this is not the case, if the threats should continue and the lives and rights of judges, jurors, lawyers should be attacked, let there be no doubt that we will organise thousands and thousands of other jurors, other judges and other lawyers. We will appeal to democratic and international class solidarity. We will organise the victims' families. Do they want to murder Gobetti (4) again? Let them beware. He is no longer alone."

In the afternoon and until late evening I take part in a meeting. Present are the members of the Secretariat, the Rome party members and also some from other cities. For the first time since the Bologna congress where Massimo Teodori and I were in disagreement - I had the impression that he wanted to avoid me, that he might even refuse to greet me - he comes to a party meeting: He too seems worried, emotional, and in his way affectionate. The debate, introduced by Gianfranco, is taken up with the public action the party ought to take. The atmosphere is charged with tension. My comrades are emotionally involved in the risks I may run in Turin. One of them, during a talk in which he expresses many fears, exclaims at a certain point: "Maybe we are unconsciously preparing the sacrifice of another Giorgiana Masi!" Gianfranco doesn't hide his irritation. I knock on wood. During my talk I describe my life and my feelings during this period. Then I go on to my impressions of the political events, to the new gov

ernment agreement the majority coalition has reached. And I express a question that I have wondered about these days: considering the behaviour of the left, the attempts to annul all non-violent opposition, the cancellation of the referendums, the elimination of the consititutional guarantees, isn't there the danger that thousands more people will be pushed into choosing the road of violent opposition? How many times these days people ask me: "Do you see? What use are your signatures on petitions?" With difficulty the debate surmounts the anxieties and emotions in order to confront the question of what we can do with our limited means in this period so difficult for us.

Emma has the word. She tells us of the debate and the programs of the [parliamentary] group. In two days the government will present itself to the chambers [of parliament]. From everything one knows the program proclaimed by Andreotti considers only one "emergency": that of an urgent commitment of the parties of the majority coalition to "shoot down" the four remaining referendums the Constitutional Court has spared. The group is determined to oppose this design with all possible means, including obstructionism. In the end we decide to call a meeting of the federative council in Turin of Saturday on the theme of "violence and non-violence", and to convene two days of Radical mobilisation in this city for the following Monday and Tuesday. The tools of the mobilisation: tables in the streets and squares with manifestoes and flyers for distribution to the passers-by and appeals and declarations to have the citizens sign. Why in Turin? Because this city is where the homicidal activity of the Red Brigades h

as been most virulent, and here is where the trial is taking place in an atmosphere of "summary justice" which the majority is trying to excite around it.

At the end of the meeting I meet Mimmo Pinto and Gad Lerner of the "Lotta Continua" (5) editorial department. I go to dinner with Giovanni, Giorgio, Mario, Rosa and other comrades.

This has been my impact with the trial. There is no doubt: the very first days have been the most difficult but also the most vital. With enormous speed I have had experiences, emotional reactions, various and contradictory reflections: I have lived intensely the reality surrounding me. At certain moments I felt I was getting old rapidly, accumulating a weariness from which I thought I would never manage to recover. Events plummeted on to me with their full weight: tied down to the trial, impotent, even in physical danger, I had the sensation that the regime-terrorism clash would end by destroying everything positive there was in the country. For several days I felt I had lost faith and hope, that I would have to put everything in doubt again. The attempt to pass directly through each and every event without being able to detach myself even partly and see things from a certain distance had worn me out. Then, little be little, I began to emerge. As always I put faith in the ability of the people to evalu

ate, understand and decide. And so I regained, perhaps without even noticing it, a kind of serentity (possibly a somewhat strange kind).

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Giorgiana Masi

2) The Rocco codes are old Fascist penal laws that are still in force in Italy. Their author was Alfredo Rocco, Minister of Justice from 1925 - 32.

3) Condfederazione Italiana Sindacati Nazionali Lavoratori / The Italian Confederation of National Labour Unions.

4) Piero Gobetti (Turin 1901 - Paris 1926) An ideologist of liberal socialism who fled to Paris because of Fascist persecution. He was murdered by the Fascists.

5) A far left-wing newspaper.