ABSTRACT: A collection of documents on the radicals' libertarian antifascism: to recognize fascism means to understand what it has been and above all what it can be. Apparent antifascism too often hides a complicity with those who represented the true continuity with fascism, the reprise of laws and methods typical of that regime. (" WE AND THE FASCISTS", The radicals' libertarian antifascism, edited by Valter Vecellio, preface by Giuseppe Rippa - Quaderni Radicali/1, November 1980)

On February 12, 1976 the "Corriere della Sera" published an article by Giuliana Cabrini, the national secretary of the Non-Violent League of Convicts, who supported the charges made by Ventura and asked the left to open a debate on the matter.

On the same date the Radical Party's secretary adhered to Giuliana Cabrini's request to recognise Freda's and Ventura's right to a trial. "As for any other person under arrest for any other penal process", the secretary declared, "here too the only legitimate alternative is for an immediate trial or the concession of liberty pending trial. Whatever the subjective opinions may be regarding the roles played by Freda and Ventura, the laws and principles of the Constitution must apply to all. It is inadmissible that the pretext of anti-Fascism should allow the government to tread down basic principles and guarantees, thus behaving not merely in a Fascist manner but in a downright Bourbon way.

"The parliamentary as well as the extraparliamentary left must stop furnishing the regime with this alibi. The institutions and the magistracy, in fact, offer the illegal detention of Freda and Ventura as compensation for the lack of a trial on the Piazza Fontana bombing and the other massacres involving state organs that would necessarily compel the incrimination of members of parliament and generals of the regime's party and not merely a few neo-Fascist professional killers."

Gianfranco Spadaccia furthermore declared: "I have received a number of letters from Ventura in which he vaunts his presumed leftist activism and reproves the Radical Party for not having taken on his defence. There is no contradiction. No one can oblige us to take on the defence of someone who does not convince us. The trial documents do in fact show clearly that Ventura had to do with several secret services. That is why we did not and do not want to have anything to do with him. But this much said, the norms of a constitutional state must apply to Ventura as well as for Freda and for anyone else without exceptions".

On February 23 Ventura replied to Spadaccia with this letter:

Dear Spadaccia,

I make reference to the communication of the PR Secretariat and the declaration of its Secretary that appeared in no.42 of "Notizie Radicali" regarding the trial in which I an the defendant.

a) As far as the communication of the Secretariat is concerned, I am pleased to find there a political trial analysis of the proceedings on the Milan bombing which regard and refer directly to my position and with which I am in complete agreement.

Anyone who knows my political biography and the consistent position I have taken in the trial from the beginning, cannot ignore the personal and political contribution that I have made to the line of interpretation taken in the book " Gli attentati e lo scioglimento del Parlamento " (Padua, 1970) ever since its publication.

In reality this line corresponds to the political facts and to a well-defined reconstruction of the trial based on proofs.

Beyond that I cannot go along with the attitude of the Secretariat which regards the part indicating that a correct resolution of the present state of the procedure is "the legitimate alternative of an immediate trial or the concession of liberty pending trial".

"The immediate trial", even if the hearing were to be called for tomorrow morning, would not make up for five years of infamous and illegal imprisonment (which continues to go on, also because only today the requests of several comrades has caused the Radical Party to bring up the problem of respecting human and juridical guarantees in this trial, for these defendants); it would not restore equality of rights with my co-defendants Borghese, Gargamelli, Merlino and Valpreda - that is equal rights to defence, to the assumption of innocence, to the protection that the law fundamentally provides against all the negative effects deriving from the accusation, to the personal integrity of persons equal before the law: in one word, to equality of the fundamental right, that of freedom.

Therefore the "immediate trial" would not be an alternative to my right of freedom and equality. It is a self-subsistent right and the concession of liberty pending trial is an "act of duty", a question of civil decency.

On the other hand, the disposition of art. 5, par. 5, of the European Convention cannot be understood as meaning that there is an option between "immediate trial" (or within a reasonable length of time) and liberty pending trial. (Even less can it be understood as admitting of neither a trial nor liberty pending trial as is happening.)

The reasonable nature of the period in which an accused person can be kept in custody pending trial must be considered in function of the state of custody in which the defendant finds himself: that he must be considered not guilty. And the object of the norm in question is essentially to impose liberty pending trial once the length of custody ceases to be reasonable.

Giuliana Cabrini, in her article in the "Corriere" of February 12, indicated the right to "immediate trial" and liberty pending trial (that is, equal treatment) as being co-extensive conditions and inter-related postulates.

And Guido Calvi (a lawyer, ed.) did not disassociate himself from such a viewpoint when he declared: "We must democratically maintain that a defendant, even if a Fascist, cannot be kept in prison for five years waiting for trial" ("Epoca", February 18, 1976).

Neither would "immediate release" be able to compensate for the uncompensatable, that is the civil injury of having kept several defendants in prison for five years in open contempt of articles 3, 13, and 27 of the Constitution.

Nor is there a real difference between the brutality with which my human rights and legal guarantees have been denied and the traditionalism of the arrogant and grim regime that opposes civil liberties (after having tried to liquidate or immobilise political ones).

b) Apropos of the declaration of the Secretary of the PR, to say that I "vaunt (my) presumed leftist activism", it is like making me pass for a braggart. More simply and truly I limit myself to stating the political facts of my experience and of proving with them the democratic loyalty of my political life. It is those who deny my democratic loyalties who "vaunt" their ignorance of the trial records in a cheap conformist way, to give themselves the alibi of indifference and conceit, to make others believe that having had "to do with several secret services" is enough to make the "claim" to leftist militancy.

One would have to go and talk to those lawyers who are defending Maletti and La Bruna (secret service agents, ed.), that is to say, the organisers of Marco Pozzan's expatriation, and those who gave aid to Guido Giannettini (another secret service agent, ed.) in avoiding capture. The same ones who offered me the chance to escape from prison so that my "leftist militancy" and the true nature of my "having to do with several secret services" would not emerge in an explosive fashion during the trial.

I only "had to do" with the security organisation of our country within the framework of political intelligence activities directed at leftist circles and groups and ascribed to them. The political motivation of my intelligence work is written in the trial records for those who have the political intelligence and intellectual honesty to recognise it. And one will also be able to read a contribution edited by Andrea Barberi in a coming edition of "Panorama" (a popular weekly, ed.). (Which however will not contain what the Public Prosecutor said to Barberi last week: "Ventura has nothing to do with it" and "they don't know how they can bring him into the courtroom and sustain charges against him for the bombing").

The Secretary of the PR says that he "doesn't want to have anything to do" with me because of the story of the secret services (that is, because he omits all critical and responsible analyses) based on knowledge of the trial records of my intelligence work. He nevertheless adds that "the norms of a constitutional state must be applied to all without exception", even to me.

Tell me then, how does he intend to concretely support the respect of "the norms of a constitutional state without exception" even for a citizen with whom "he doesn't want to have anything to do" and whose unheard-of custody pending trial has no precedent in the history of our country.

Sincere and fraternal greetings,

Giovanni Ventura

("Prova Radicale", June 1976)