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 QUESTION OF SELF-DEFENSE

Tuesday, March 21. The anti-terrorist decree goes into effect, the first of the special laws announced by the Andreotti government. At Montecitorio (1) Mauro Mellini comments: " Today the Red Brigades have marked up a great success". The provision decrees the end of the secrecy of the inquiry, the possibility of being interrogated without a lawyer present, the almost unlimited right of the police to arrest people on suspicion and the right to bug telephone conversations. Leaders of the CGIL (2) and the traditional left are incredibly brazen in continuing to proclaim that they are against any "norm of an exceptional nature that conflicts with the dictates of the Constitution".

Meanwhile at the Lamarmora barracks the most interesting juridical question of the entire trial comes up which is that of self-defense. Already since several days the newspapers, especially those of Turin, have been painting in dark colours the possibility that the defendants will be given the right to defend themselves [without lawyers, ed.] as well as the duty of the court-appointed lawyers not to violate their professional ethics by defending someone who has refused their aid. The lawyers who present the question of self-defense have already been classified, openly or between the lines, as the "party of postponement" of the trial. The question of self-defense reeks of the ridiculous: first of all it already was raised two years ago during the first attempt to bring the Red Brigades to trial, and furthermore it has been provided for in our laws ever since the Geneva Convention to safeguard human rights and fundamental freedoms became the law of the land. Our codes did not previously provide for the

right to defend oneself [without legal aid, ed.]. These codes date from 1930 and thus reflect a specific ideology and ensuing vision of the state. They only foresee a defense made by court-appointed lawyers. Two years ago, when the defendants of the Turin trial refused lawyers, the Court of Assizes rejected the objection of unconstitutionality judging it to be inadmissible. During the succeeding months, however, various theses were developed and a wide debate was opened among the law experts. Some of these actually worked up solutions inspired by the examples of other nations where the right of self-defense is recognised and in effect. Not only this, the presiding judge, aware that the sooner or later the question would come to the surface, had urgently requested the Ministry of Justice and the Parliament to prepare the regulations for self-defense. Several Turin jurists had prepared a bill that was presented by a deputy, but which still today is lying grounded on the shoals at Montecitorio.

What amazes one is that notwithstanding the pressures by the Ministry of Justice and several political forces for "holding the trial and holding it soon", no party of the majority coalition has condescended to interest itself in the problem. It is however true that we are talking about a "non-governing" majority: the reform of the penal procedure code has been postponed for more than a decade, year after year. In the face of such facts, Barbaro does not even try, quite rightly, to hide his displeasure and disappointment.

Immediately after the beginning of the trial twelve of the court-appointed lawyers (Albanese, Avonto, Bonati, Chiusano, Del Fiume, Gianaria, Guidetti-Sera, Minni, Mittone, Papa, Speranza, and Zancan) read a "memoir" in which they again object to the unconstitutional norms on the court-appointed defense and sustain the right to self-defense. The salient passages in the memoir clarify how the role of the defending lawyer is to be understood in the political trial.

When there is a global rejection of the trial and the person to be judged assumes for himself the role of judge, it follows that one is dealing with something other than a merely technical rejection of the defending counsel for the sake of better protection of the defendant's interests, but there is a clash with the use of the hearing - which is not at all unusual in political trials such as the present one certainly is - as an occasion to attack the state. According to some, this is a problem which is not susceptible to any reply other than that of authoritarian supremacy which is exempt from contestation on the strictly juridical level.

It admonishes the defense to eschew such a line of thought which resolves itself, most of all, in a contradictory consecration of the dialectical submission of the state: the state which, instead, can and must assure the holding of the trial in a regular manner, which is not and can never be, by definition, the celebration of a vindictive rite.

The orientation of those who drafted the thesis fully favours, in short, the defendants' right of choice with respect to the so-called higher interests of the state.

The supporters of self-defense take as their point of departure the ideological presupposition that the most important figure in the trial is the defendant; his and exclusively his is the right of defense which is inscribed among the inviolable personal rights cited in art. 2 of the Constitution concerned with the relations between citizen and state; the delegation of authority to a third party to decide on the contents of the complaint is unacceptable.

To avoid the risk of arriving at dangerous and aberrant results, one should say that the function of the defending counsel is not to assure the so-called "higher interests of society" but rather that simpler but no less important one of protecting primarily and exclusively the interests of his defendant to obtain the most favourable verdict for him. If that is his business, it is clear that this goal cannot be realised where there is lacking at least a minimum of collaboration with his client. What will he be able to do, for instance, regarding the gathering of evidence, if he is not been able to learn anything from his defendant regarding the "facts" of the case? What elements regarding his personality, what trial strategy is

imaginable, even more in consideration of the fact that he must necessarily come to conclusions?

The conclusion reaffirms the right of the citizen to defend himself as he likes: that is, even not to defend himself at all.

We may be in the presence of a great change that will involve the complete rethinking of the role that the legal profession is destined to play in the halls of justice. A rethinking, furthermore, that should not necessarily lead one to expect the downgrading of judicial civilisation. Recalling the words of an admirable verdict uttered by a judge of a nation that has for long recognised and practised self-defense: "It is one thing to maintain that every defendant, rich or poor, has the right to legal assistance, and quite another thing to maintain that the state can impose on the defendant an attorney that he doesn't want".

This orientation, with which seven of the court-appointed defense lawyers do not agree - among whom, first of all, the Communist attorneys - recalls the court to a very wide-ranging problem. The court-appointed defense attorneys who have been rejected do not want to become a function, do not want to become defenders of the trial rather than of the defendants.

The reaction of "La Stampa" (3) will be hard and instrumental: "The trial must be held at all costs". Neither will the other newspapers be less so. The "Gazzetta del Popolo": "The Turin trial risks annulment: Twelve lawyers for the self-defense of the BR"; "La Repubblica": "Self-defense blocks the trial"; "L'Unità": "The question of self-defense seems a false problem". Only with the passing of time will the observers become aware that this incident has become a question of principle, of primary importance. The lawyers in favour (Socialists, Liberals, Radicals, moderates and far-leftists) will choose to remain at their posts for the simple reason of assuring that the fundamental trial norms are respected. They will not take any initiatives except at the behest of their clients. In essence they will choose only to function as guarantors. For all twelve it seems to be a very new experience. A new defense model for political trials is born.

The document is read in the courtroom by Bianca Guidetti-Sera. The discourses of other lawyers follow. Maria Magnani-Noya candidly declares that "for juridical reasons, but above all for reasons of opportunism" she is not in agreement with the opinion just expressed, thus forgetting that the guarantees of the independence of the magistracy and of the equality of all citizens before the law ought to keep opportunism far from the halls of justice. The Public Prosecutor Moschella opposes the "thesis of the twelve", arguing technically, and to tell the truth in a hardly comprehensible way, that "the presence of a court-appointed lawyer is one more guarantee which does not exclude the right to self-defense".

The court retires for the first real consultation in camera. The debate is long and intense, the positions various. There is the negative precedent of two years ago and it is not easy to put the sacred codes into question. At the end, the jury draws up a decree in which it points out "the indubitable importance of the question submitted". The decree, however, does not enter into the merits of the question, which is considered irrelevant in this trial "since the defendants have not declared that they want to take on their own defense". This is probably an expedient. In communique no. 12 of March 29, the defendants will comment on this aspect of the trial thus:

"...You yourselves, basing the decree (in which you have declared the question of "self-defense" irrelevant) on our communiques, have had to recognise the fact: "now it is the proletarian revolution which makes the laws"!!! Precisely this relationship of forces permits us furthermore to affirm concretely that we, as part of the Organisation of Communist Combat which is directing this trial, we are here not to defend ourselves but to accuse. The defendants here are not us, "honoured sirs"!!!

Thus it is obvious that the question of self-defense cannot concern us but only you and your regime lawyers.

In fact, we here take and will take the word each time we consider it necessary to express and sustain our accusations...

After three and a half hours in the camera and the reading of the decree, Barbaro adjourns the trial. The Easter holidays are nearing.

As I leave the Lamarmora barracks a couple of Carabinieri come up to greet me. One of them whispers to me that - especially after the Via Fani massacre - they talk a lot among themselves about my refusal of armed protection. It may be for this or for some other reason, but I realise that I am well accepted among these boys all of whose human dramas I discover (whereas the newspapers paint them as "iron men"). Going towards my car I am aware that psychologically too I have "crossed the Rubicon": it may be because I am convinced of what I am doing, or because one also gets used to the risk, but the fact remains that I am no longer afraid, even if I get angry when someone of my acquaintance exclaims "what courage!", because it is not a question of courage.

Thursday I leave for Rome and from there a nearby seaside town to rest for a little. While there I learn that the ex mayor of Turin, Picco, has been wounded and also the latest developments in the Moro case. On Easter day Rolando Paracchini and Anna D'Amico come to see me.

After several days I return to Rome on my way back to Turin. The capital is encircled in a tight security belt. I am stopped at dozens of road blocks. It is thought that the Via Fani commando will try to profit by the Easter holiday traffic to move around. I too, in the car of a friend taking me back into Rome, am stopped at the entrance into town. They stare into my face for a long time, examine Giovanni who is somewhat shabbily dressed and the broken-down Fiat 500 we are driving in. Finally they decide to ask: "And just who are you?" I reply that I am Adelaide Aglietta as my ID card states. Unconvinced two of them keep watch on us with their machine-gun at the ready while a third talks on the car radio. In the woods on our right I see in the dark the silhouettes of soldiers crouching among sacks. Finally they get confirmation that I am not a brigadier disguised as a juror and they let us go on.

Wednesday, March 29. The trial re-opens with the reading in the courtroom of the statement of the attorneys who have made constitutional objections concerning the right to self-defense. As I have mentioned, from now on they will only be present to ensure the correctness of the trial procedures even while remaining court-appointed defense attorneys. Several objections to procedure are made and most of them over-ruled.

During a pause in the hearing I try to get to the back of the courtroom where, as usual, lawyers and journalists are crowded together. Carletti (4) comes up to me and hugs me. She draws me aside: "You know, I was looking for you, but my eyesight is so bad by now that I couldn't make you out at all". Then she gets things off her chest with all the force of her humanity. She is tired. For four years now she had been carrying the burden of this Red Brigades story and it puts her in the condition of someone under police surveillance. She feels oppressed "as in Fascist times". As we speak I throw a glance at the cage of the defendants. A few seem to be curious about the incident while some others laugh. "Grandma Mao" lingers a while longer with me unabashed. Her spontaneity makes her - in a likeable way - incapable of treating with detachment all those whom she considers to be "comrades", whatever their predicament. And she knows the Radicals well, being used to seeing them at their tables at Porta Palazzo,

the most working class market in the city, where she runs her stand. I grip her hand hard in saying goodbye.

Thursday, March 30. The lawyer of Levati raises an interesting juridical point. (Levati is one of the minor defendants who was supposedly the "go-between" used by the famous "Frate Mitra" ("Friar Machine-gun", ed.), that is, Silvano Girotto, to infiltrate the Red Brigades.) The Carabinieri have furnished the court with tape two recordings of two conversations between Silvano Girotto and Levati; the recording was never authorised by the judge. Can the recordings be used as evidence or not? Levati's lawyer says not, because at the time when the recordings were made it was necessary to have a judicial mandate for an operation of this type (now, with the anti-terrorist decree, it is no longer necessary). If the recordings were to be taken into evidence, it would be a violation of the certainty of legal precedent.

A very long consultation in camera, two and a half hours: what seems obvious and constitutionally clear to me must yet be brought into line with the articles and paragraphs of a code that pre-dates the constitution, and so the debate becomes a legal thicket. At the end the jury decides that the tape recordings are not admissible. The next day I understand that for the information media not only are there "inconvenient" people and political forces, but also inconvenient "decrees of the Court of Assizes". These court decrees are important less for their contents than because they establish a practice, reject anti-legalistic logic and also because they re-open juridically the discussion of the norms that were launched a few days earlier. Thus they are minimised and reported unclearly to the public from fear that the latter will begin to have more than a little doubt about the constitutional correctness of the March 21 decree. At the end of the hearing, Barbaro utters a phrase that many consider "fateful":

"The debate is open".

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TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

1) Montecitorio is the seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and the word is frequently used to indicate that chamber.

2) The Communist labour union.

3) The Fiat-owned Turin newspaper.

4) Carletti - see BR-1644.ING p.14 for details

5) In Italian law, an intrinsic characteristic of law which makes it possible to count on any concrete cases that may come up being evaluated by the court in an analogous way to preceding cases.