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)

THE VIA FANI MASSACRE

Thursday, March 16. At about nine in the morning I am awakened by a call from Emma Bonino who tells me with a trembling voice that Aldo Moro has been kidnapped. I ask her if she is joking. She says she isn't and I stand there numb with the telephone in my hand. It is the second time in little more than ten days that I receive serious and disturbing news over the telephone. I turn on the radio which says that four men of his bodyguard were killed and a fifth is in serious condition in the hospital. In my mind's eye I see the confused faces of the young Carabinieri on duty at the Turin trial. I think of Moro, our adversary, destined for the Quirinal [that is, the post of president of the republic. ed.] he whose logic permeates all of Italian politics, he who is the great "down-grinder". I am almost inclined to think that he cannot have survived the attack. I force myself to analyse the events: this time they have really struck at the heart of the state... the reply of the regime will be a total closure, the op

position will be even more pushed aside, no one will listen to us anymore... And then: what will Moro's kidnapping mean for the trial? And if, instead, he is alive, will they ask for an exchange of prisoners and will we have to confront this problem? But who has struck at the most powerful man in Italy? Was it really the Red Brigades? How will the Turin defendants react? I get dressed and go to Montecitorio [the Chamber of Deputies]. Rome is quiet. At the entrance to the Piazza dell'Obelisco a blue car shoots in front of me (I think it is an Alfetta [the car used by the Carabinieri, ed.]). In the back seat I recognise Francesco Cossiga. He is squeezed in between two policemen and there is another in front beside the driver. An instinctive thought comes into my mind: "You too have killed."

The first symptoms of what the Moro case represents clearly manifest themselves in the parliamentary group: La Malfa (1) asks for martial law and the death penalty. Not even Almirante (2) manages to equal him. In the morning edition of "La Repubblica" there is the headline: "Is Aldo Moro the Antelope?". In the extra edition the first page, with huge print announcing the massacre and the kidnapping, is identical except that the piece on Moro is missing. Marco Pannella pops out of the elevator. He is coming from the "Transatlantico" (3). Antonello Trombadori (4) shouted after him: "And you who wanted to do away with confinement! (5) Draw and quarter them! Draw and quarter them!"

Here is the meaning of the Moro case. I ask for a ticket to the gallery of the Chamber to hear the speech for the presentation of the Andreotti government. The deputies' benches are crowded. Many of them are flipping through the newspapers. A few - incredibly - are smirking. The old "qualunquista" (6) slogan comes to my mind: "Don't make politics, politics is dirty". Andreotti is a little less bent over than usual. With the excitement over the Moro kidnapping he can do whatever he likes today. "The government intends to present a new law that may cut the ground out from under the referendum against the Reale law (7) which, today, would be a referendum for or against criminality".

I see Marco on the far left jump to his feet to protest. Ingrao (8) rings his bell vehemently shutting up the Radical deputies who leave the hall. I watch Andreotti who is casually rattling off everything that has been said for thirty years every time a government is presented to the Chamber. Then I stare at the benches of the Communists: Berlinguer looks impassive while Pajetta's face wears an arrogant expression - for a change! I look at Alessandro Natta, the head of the Communist group at Montecitorio (9) and I think of the farce of six days earlier: "L'Unità" (10) had published one of his interviews on March 12 in which he said he would have brought into the government also "personalities" and "experts" who were welcomed by the leftist parties. That same day Andreotti made known the names of the ministers, all Christian Democrats, who have always been interchangeable in running the various ministries. By the time the Communists knew about it thousands of copies of "L'Unità" were already on the newss

tands.

I call Turin from the offices of the parliamentary group. They tell me that the PCI's law and order forces have forced the shopkeepers to pull down their shutters whether they like it or not and the unions have convened a great concentration of forces, as everywhere. We draft several declarations. Both Marco Pannella and I demand that the interior minister resign. As was foreseen a certain kind of administration of power and public order has proved disastrous for the regime itself. The lucid opinion of Pasolini (11): the left has refused "to put the regime on trial", and so today the entire country must watch the farcical trial of a handful of assassins who have in their hands "the most powerful of powerful men". Gianfranco Spadaccia analyses the reaction of the "political world" in the face of this crime:

"The state of war, the death sentence - these are not only the hysterical reactions of political leaders in the face of such grave events; they are also a manifestation of impotence of the politicians and of a weak and incapable government that not only cannot guarantee public order but that do not manage to safeguard the liberty and safety of their top representatives. After years of the Reale law, of high-security prisons, of special procedures and special laws, of the annulment of constitutional guarantees, we have had not a stronger but a weaker state. These are the policies that have led to present ruin, always more serious and critical. Now more than ever we need steady nerves and politicians aware that we can only escape from the chaos and tragedy into which we are plunging by the exercise of legality and the reconstruction and renewal of the functioning of the essential organs of government. The coming hours, which will in any case be critical, will be confronted we fear in the worst possible co

nditions: with the howling of those who think that this gives them strength and with new demonstrations of impotence and weakness."

Back at home I turn on the television: The minister of the interior distributes photographs of the presumed brigadiers. Among these is the well-known Pisetta, the police infiltrator into the organisation ! The wives and mothers of the fallen weep in despair. As always they are the one's who pay the highest price. For a moment I think it is right that they ask for vengeance. In bed another thought keeps me from sleeping, an idea that only now assails me: is it possible that there will be a "German" development in this situation? If there should be a strong-arm confrontation between the kidnappers and the government, or if Moro is found assassinated, will not the shadow of Stanheim and the false suicides of Andreas Bader and his comrades also fall on Italy? If perverse mechanisms of this type should be set off, the terrorist or government logic of death and violence would triumph turning into scorched earth everything or everyone who only rejects the logic of force. The road of justice must at least be gi

ven a chance; it is the only one that can impede crimes of all kinds and in which one can put whatever hopes remain of not being plunged into disaster. Therefore there are many reasons of different kinds that make me reaffirm the necessity of my presence in the trial.

Friday, March 17. The Chamber of Deputies is debating the new norms regarding the composition of the Court of Assizes juries. Mauro Mellini presents the amendment to abolish dispensation from jury duty for deputies and party secretaries who are all deputies.

"Conversion of decree in the Court of Assizes 14-2-78 no. 31" (Amendment signed by Mellini and others)

The following article is added:

Letters b, c, and d of article 9, of Law 10 April 1951 no. 287 (1) are abolished.

Abolished is art. 12 letter c of Law 10 April 195 1 no. 287 (2). There is added to letter b of that article: for member of the Armed Forces (3) is meant, to all effects, he who has been taken on and is effectively engaged in military armed service.

(1) Dispensed from jury duty for the duration of their office are: a) ministers, etc.... b) members of Parliament; c) Regional commissars; d) prefects...

(2) Those ineligible for jury duty are: a) magistrates;

b) members of the Armed Forces of the State and of the police forces; c) ministers of all religious cults.

3) Art. 8 C.P.M.P.: They cease to be members of the Armed Forces: a) Officers on the day following their notification of the provision that establishes the definitive end of their obligations of military service, b) Other soldiers from the moment they receive the certificate of final discharge (45th year of age).

The groups of the majority coalition reject the amendment. The next day I leaf through the newspapers thinking that at least the news will have been reported: not one paper reports it; that is how ready the Italian information media are to offer cover, omissions, silence, censorship and any other service to the "Palazzo"! (12)

Saturday and Sunday, March 18, 19. The Federative Council meets in the Turin offices of the Radical Party. Only four days have passed since we called the meeting, but it seems like much longer. In between Moro's kidnapping has taken place and the murder of his bodyguard. These facts give greater actuality to our fears of the time and confirm our analyses of the situation, make it all the more critical.

The talks, in which many comrades participate, also show a greater awareness. In particular, I recall the words of Rosa Filippini on the politics of assassination, of the annihilation of the adversary. Nothing is more radically opposed to non-violence which always presupposes dialogue, and thus the existence of the other. They were the same concepts that I expressed when I heard of the killing of Carlo Casalegno which was a most painful blow for me. During the intermission, I stop for lunch with Luca Boneschi who has come from Milan with several comrades. Among them is Bea one of our comrades from the Women's Liberation Movement with whom I have had grounds for quarrelling in past months. I am glad that she has come.

Luca has brought me a book on self-defense, a problem that the trial presents and on which I feel the need of being informed. I go to eat with a bunch of comrades from Rome, Turin, Milan and Naples: Marcello Crivellini, Giorgio Spadaccia, Rosa, Mario Signorino, Elena Negri, Paolo Chicco, Angiolo Bandinelli, Nicola Lucatelli, Laura Cherubini, Geppi Rippa and Loredana Lipperini.

In the afternoon Sergio Stanzani arrives. It is almost incredible how despite his heavy schedule as an industrialist he manages never to miss a party meeting. Sergio belongs to the "historical" group as we call the older comrades with respect, but also with affectionate irreverence. In the 50's he was along with Marco Pannella and Franco Roccella one of the leaders of the student movement of that time (L'Unione Goliardica Italiana). I marvel at the extraordinary rapport he manages to maintain with the younger comrades. I think it must be the consequence of his constant attention which is real and not superficial or exploitative.

From general questions the debate goes on to "what to do", to the concrete difficulties we have to face. A talk by Gianfranco takes the question away from the events of the last days to the future prospects, to the commitments that are not immediate, to the collective road we must travel: a political force is such if it has the power to avoid being overwhelmed by events, however dramatic they may be. In such moments one has to anchor oneself to one's own history, humbly face one's duties (mine of the trial, those of the deputies in Parliament, those of the other comrades in their daily activities), know how to wait for new contradictions to present themselves and to resist until one can deal with them and blow them up. I think of the long "underground" periods of the party's existence which comrades like Marco, Gianfranco, Angiolo and the rest of us more recently have known. Without this capacity for detachment and resistance today's Radical Party would not exist. Gianfranco ends by saying that our next

important deadline is the referendum of June 11: that is the time when the word will be given back to the people, when we will be able once again to make democratic functions hold their own against the opposing violence of the regime and the Red Brigades.

On Sunday many other comrades from our associated groups arrive. Monday there will be twenty party tables [in the streets, ed.] and at each table groups of comrades with flyers and the text of a declaration. People will stop, ask information, sign, take away material, give money. When spring is on the way the tables are an almost physiological tool for Radical organisation: a way of being together and being together with people. But now the tables also have a symbolic meaning: fight fear, take the political battle back into the streets and squares, confirm our will to exist and to fight in a non-violent way, reveal ourselves collectively together with our ideas to oppose the terrorism of the Red Brigades and the authoritarianism of the regime.

Monday, March 20. I arrive late at the Lamarmora barracks. The other jurors, used to seeing me punctually, are worried. One of them is on the outlook for me and heaves a sigh of relief as soon as he sees me. He reproves me, even brusquely, for my tardiness: the fear had been spreading that something had happened to me.

Outside the courtroom there is great agitation. Everyone is talking about the kidnapping of Aldo Moro. Many people think the BR will demand an exchange with the defendants of this trial. The attorneys with whom I speak are categorical in saying that there would be no legal possibility even if there was the desire. Barbaro is less talkative than usual and thoughtful.

The defendants were exultant and joyful as soon as they got the news of Aldo Moro's kidnapping, or at least that's what the papers say. I try to verify this report, but I do not succeed. As soon as I enter the courtroom I immediately notice the great tension and I stop to look attentively at the defendants. Renato Curcio is seated in the middle of the group. He suddenly looks older to me than his photographs of just two years ago. His behaviour is as always very composed and often attentive.

Normally during the long hearings Curcio is thoughtful. Towards the end of the trial I will notice that more and more often he sits with his head in his hands which makes me think of a kind of psychological wearing-down and weariness. What is certain is that Curcio struck me as the most determined figure, the most convinced and intransigent. His discourses are precise and thorough, his behaviour consistent and calm. His glance is that of someone who has no doubts or hesitations and yet is not inhuman. My curiosity about the defendants, the desire to talk to them and understand what has led them to choose a life of clandestinity and armed battle will remain with me throughout the trial.

The hearing begins with an incident. The journalists speak with loud voices, some of them are furious and not stingy with their abuse. Uneasiness is spreading among the attorneys too. Barbaro explains to me at once that by order of the police no photographers or journalists are allowed to bring tape recorders into the courtroom. One belonging to the lawyer Bianca Guidetti-Sera, who is used to recording everything, has also been confiscated. They want to avoid giving "publicity " to possible declaration of the brigadiers eulogising the kidnapping of Moro. After a few minutes of consultation we all agree that interference is inadmissible: the guarantee of publicity must be all the more assured in this crisis. I am convinced that they are trying to blame the trial for the long series of omissions and errors committed by the Ministry of the Interior. Seeing that the "power of the state" has no other way of expressing itself, it shows itself in trying to shut up the defendants. Very soon now we will reach th

e point where some newspapers will constantly lay hands on them, deforming their behaviour and emphasising their statements in a negative way. The behaviour of the defendants, as I have said, is very composed.

The nerves of the public prosecutor Moschella, on the other hand, go to pieces when they talk about the Moro case: (Ferrari: "... there is quite another trial..."; Franceshini: "The real trial is taking place elsewhere..."; Curcio: "Moro is in the hands of the proletariat and he will be tried..."). While all of this goes on, Barbaro investigates the reasons why the police refuse to let journalists and photographers enter the courtroom with tape recorders. The Carabinieri say they have no responsibility for the decision and very soon it comes out that the order came from Francesco Cossiga (13) in person. Barbaro holds to his line and orders, first of all, that Guidetti-Sera be given back her tape recorder. Then a long delay takes place. Having nothing to do I decide to go and have a coffee. This is the occasion on which by chance I find myself face to face with an anti-terrorist official who is talking on the telephone with Rome: "Certainly, certainly, don't worry... just as soon as they have read the co

mmunique we will tell them everything at once, we'll see if it will count as a useful element for the investigation..." I wish that the hopes for Moro's safety don't entirely depend on the "revelations" in the communiques of the defendants in this trial.

After a few hours we hear that Cossiga has given way because of the court's absolute refusal to proceed with the hearing. The trial begins again with Ferrari's attempt (rejected by Barbaro) to read communique no.11 which, with the usual cunning is nevertheless added to the trial documents. As a result the defendants quit the courtroom, or better, it is left by all but three (those who are called the "observers who are watching your counter-revolutionary activity"). The hearing concludes with a final squabble between the public prosecutor Moschella and Ferrari.

In the chancery I have them give me a photocopy of the communique which was not allowed to be read and I note that with regard to Moro it adds nothing to what was in all the daily papers, reiterating the communique which claimed responsibility for the kidnapping:

... Aldo MORO, captured and imprisoned as a PRISONER OF WAR in a PEOPLE'S PRISON by the Organisation of Communist Combat RED BRIGADES, will be put on trial.

Moro has no greater responsibility politically than his Christian Democrat "friends", although he has been progressively becoming the political centre of gravity as "theoretician" and "strategist" of the Christian Democratic regime and imperialist state.

This proletarian trial regards all the DC, its thirty-year "occupation of the state" and the corollary of crimes-iniquities-massacres-scandals to which it has tried to make us inured; it regards the projects of preventive counter-

revolution which the most powerful imperialistic centres intend to impose on our country through it.

Zaccagnini's exertions are useless to dress up his party yet again in populist or interclassist disguises: the DC has never been a POPULAR party...

...Useless too is the "self-interested help" of the PCI and the labour unions. "The psychological mass action" explicitly requested by Andreotti is based on BLACKMAIL, TERRORISM, DECEIT and on QUALUNQUISMO (see note 6), the "cruel exploitation of the feelings of public opinion" has a short life and turns back on its reckless instigators..."

...And finally, useless too is the political and military aid which the dominant classes of the other imperialist states are proffering so generously. From Carter to Schmidt to the NATO, all of them have imposed their "help"... The unity of this conformist, neo-corporative political regime without any positive identity, formally rigid but fragile and insubstantial in its political contents is similar to that of the shipwrecked: it is a unity for survival at all costs!

Unstable and transitory, this regime in no way represents a solution that can "take the country out of crisis". That is why it must be fought and liquidated with every means and all energy. To those who object that the revolutionary attack is the cause of the counter-revolution, of "involution" and even of "coups d'etat" we reply that this is pure LIQUIDATIONIST DEMAGOGUERY! After all, who is supposed to do it, this "coup d'etat" seeing that the powers, the state, is administrated "democratically" by the entire front of the imperialist bourgeoisie, by the "grand alliance" (DC, PCI and various lackeys)?

The true danger, the true "coup d'etat" - it is not from there that it will come, but it is in the making itself of this state and the imperialistic restructuring of the state which has been progressing for several years in the country.

Certainly we accept the war! But we are not the ones CREATING the counter-revolution. It is the from itself that the imperialism in crisis assumes. It is not one of its "aspects", but its "SUBSTANCE".

To make this fundamental truth emerge, by means of the ARMED STRUGGLE FOR COMMUNISM, is the necessary presupposition of the class war in the cities....

...This is the strategic terrain of the reconstruction of an effective class opposition to the regime of the "grand alliance" and the imperialist state, of the UNIFICATION of the Revolutionary Movement, of the constitution of the Party of Communist Combat.

That is why the trial of Moro is not the "end of the game"...

I make a quick get away to the party offices. On the way I stop for a while at two tables in the street being run by comrades from Naples and Turin.

In the afternoon I also go to the table at Piazza Castello. There I meet Camilla Cederna numb with cold. Her arrival in Turin was scheduled for this evening for a Radical Radio broadcast to present her book "Giovanni Leone. The Career Of a President". Knowing of the non-violent mobilisation of the party she arrived earlier out of solidarity with me. I am glad she is here and I hug her. This thing about a table in the street among the people is new to her, but certainly rich in interesting and amusing ideas which her sensibility and sense of humour are quick to pick up. While we hand out leaflets and talk with passers-by, she tells me about her book. Neither of us can foresee today the clamorous consequences of what she calls "the fruit of my curiosty".

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Ugo La Malfa (1903 - 1979) A founder of the Partito d'Azione and at this time president of the Partito Repubblicano Italiano (PRI).

2) Giorgio Almirante (1914 - 1988) leader of the neo-Fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI).

3) Transatlantico - the name given to the vast corridor running outside the Chamber of Deputies.

4) Antonello Trombadori - A PCI deputy.

5) Confinement - A security measure provided by Italian law that could impose obligatory residence (usually in some very small community) on people "known to be dangerous" even when they have not been convicted of a specific crime. The measure could be used with people known to belong to mafia or terrorist organisations and was intended to make it easier to control their illicit activities. It has since, in fact, been abolished.

6) Qualunquista/qualunquismo - a much-used and untransaltable expression referring to an attitude of distrust towards political parties and the party system in general.

7) The Reale law was a very rigid public order law.

8) Piero Ingrao - A Communist leader sometime president of the Chamber of Deputies.

9) Montecitorio - The name of the building housing the Chamber of Deputies and used synonymously to indicate that body.

10) The official Communist daily.

11) Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922 - 1975), the well-known poet and film-maker.

12) "Palazzo" - A common pejorative term referring to the government powers.

13) Minister of the Interior at the time.