Italian prosecutors on Friday charged
12 mostly far-right militants for making Fascist salutes at the
commemoration earlier this week of the April 16, 1973 lefttist
militant Primavalle Massacre arson attack that killed two sons
of a neofascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) local leader in
the Rome neighborhood.
In the fire, the eight-year-old and 22-year-old sons of MSI
Primavalle secretary Mario Mattei, Stefano and Virgilio, were
killed.
The suspects are, for the most part, militants of extreme
right-wing political formations in Rome, including former
activists, well-known militants and new recruits of neoFascist
group Forza Nuova and its youth offshoot Lotta Studentesca
(Student Struggle), as well as a top ultra of the Lazio football
team.
In addition to those charged, Rome Digos special branch police
identified another 15 people, all linked to radical right-wing
circles.
The Constitutional Court clarified earlier this week that making
Fascist salutes was against the law even if they were "merely
commemorative", reversing the interpretation of a previous
ruling.
Premier Giorgia Meloni said on the 50th anniversary of the
Primavalle Massacre last April that it was one of the darkest
pages in Italian history.
"On 16 April fifty years ago Italy and Rome experienced one of
the darkest pages of national history", said Meloni in a message
to the president of the Fratelli Mattei Association, Giampaolo
Mattei.
"What we can do today is to keep the memory of what happened
alive, to avoid the danger of relapses and lead Italy and our
people towards a full and true national pacification," added
Meloni, whose conservative Brothers of Italy (FdI) party has its
historical roots in the MSI and features a Mussolini tricolor
flame in its logo, although the premier has repeatedly condemned
Fascism and its "odious" laws against the Jews.
Fascist and anti-fascist militants clashed regularly in
Italian streets during the 1970s and there were deaths on both
sides.
The late 1960s to late 1980s also saw many deaths in Italy's
Years of Lead of rightist and leftist political terrorism.
photo: Victims Virgilio (R) and Stefano Mattei
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