TURIN. “Having received notice of being “investigated” in relation to a proceeding concerning i events that took place at Cascina Spiotta di Arzello on 5 June 1975 I think it is useful to clearly explain my real implication in this regard, as I have already done in 1993 in the interview granted to Mario Scialoja and published in the book Open face». Thus begins the written memo, dated February 18, 2023, which the former head of the Br Renato Curcio handed over to the Turin prosecutors who investigated him for the conspiracy to murder the carabiniere John D’Alfonsowho died in the firefight of 5 June 1975 at the Spiotta farmhouse in Arzello, where, during a blitz that led to the liberation of the entrepreneur Vittorio Vallarino Ganciakidnapped by the Red Brigades, Curcio’s wife also died, Mara Cagol.
“When they fired, Mara had her hands up”
«At the time of the events in question – Curcio reconstructs – I had escaped from the Casale Monferrato prison a few months ago following an action carried out by an armed inter-column group of the Red Brigades. Action for which I have already been convicted and which therefore I do not think can relate to this investigation. However, I believe it is useful to remember it since it took place on February 18, 1975, that is to say 48 years ago, but the events inherent in the investigation started from it, which it is better to clarify».
«It goes without saying that due to the considerable uproar that that action caused, my face appeared over and over again in newspapers and television and this, both for the Red Brigades and for me, was a problem. There was, on the one hand, the concern that someone would notice and signal my presence and, on the other, the need to safeguard those close to me and the structures of the organization. In both cases it was therefore advisable for me to stay calm for a while and stay out of those risks. An assessment that was also clear to me and which I therefore shared ».
“When I returned to my active militancy I moved to Milan”
«For over a month I remained sheltered in a small apartment in Liguria waiting for the waters to boil off, as I recounted in the aforementioned book. At the beginning of April, however, the problem arose of a resumption of my active militancy and a more stable settlement. And this could not happen in Piedmont, in Turin, where starting in July 1972 I had helped build the Column and where, moreover, on 8 September 1974 in the Pinerolo area I had been arrested. With Margherita we thus evaluated that it would be more sensible for me to move to Milan, even though this meant some estrangement between us. In any case, I thought I shouldn’t even enter the ranks of the Milanese Colonna in order not to jeopardize his safety, preferring instead to devote myself to a new weaving of relationships in social environments different from those I had known and assiduously frequented between 1969 and 1972».
“Workers in autonomy but outside the Turin and Milanese column”
«Between April and May, therefore, workers in relative autonomy in Milan totally absorbed by this new task which, moreover, led me to frequent and get to know a new area of social effervescence, the one from which Valter Alasia emerged, my first collaborator in this enterprise. In fact, in that short period, I was not on the staff either in the Turin Column or in the original Milanese Column. However, if on the one hand this protected me from the risks associated with the internal dynamics of those two columns – from which the even short period of prison had completely disconnected me – on the other hand, it also inevitably decreed a substantial isolation from their obviously very compartmentalized practices. ».
“It was the Pillars who weighed the pros and cons”
«In that period, therefore, I did not participate in any of their operational campaigns, but I was invited to only one discussion meeting between Margherita for the Turin Colonna, and Mario Moretti, for the Milan one, which had become appropriate since the organization was circulating between militants the idea of adding to the expropriations of banks also possible seizures of bankers or in any case of wealthy people. In that meeting, in full Red Brigades orthodoxy, specific actions to be carried out were not discussed – even if, generically, some were mooted – but it was concluded that it would be the individual Colonne who would evaluate the pros and cons on their own, and decide full autonomy what would have been better to do for each of them».
“Never been top exponents in the Br above the Columns”
«I say “in full autonomy” because in the Red Brigades there have never been “apical exponents” above the Columns and even less “column leaders” who gave orders to subaltern militants and executors. The principle of the unity of the political dimension with the military one – “Whoever proposes does!” – widely exposed in the documents of the time, in the practices and in the posthumous testimonies, was affirmed and respected by all from the very first day. As well as that of personally participating in the actions that were proposed and accepted».
“I was unaware of the Gancia kidnapping”
«As regards the decision of the Turinese Colonna to carry out the seizure of Vallarino Gancia, I do not know any specific details because, as I said, not being internal to the Turinese Colonna, I was carefully kept in the dark about the discussion that led to its operational planning, to its implementation and of the modalities in which it should have been carried out. Close to 4 June 1975, however, I met Margherita, as periodically happened. On that occasion it was she who told me that our already rare direct meetings would be temporarily suspended for some time since the Turinese Colonna would be engaged in an action in which she herself would take part».
«On that occasion he also indicated to me another comrade who would have maintained the periodic security contacts on his behalf. And it was that comrade who on 5 June made an urgent appointment for me in Milan during which he asked me if I had heard the news on the radio. I said no and asked why I should. Thus it was that I learned of what had happened at the Spiotta farmhouse. However, I gave a broad and public testimony of all this in 1993, that is to say thirty years ago – I repeat: thirty years ago! – in the book mentioned above and widely circulated in Italy and abroad».
“I once met the companion who escaped from the farmhouse”
However, in one of the weekly security appointments that followed, I was told that the comrade who had fled from the Spiotta farmhouse after the firefight wanted to meet me to tell me firsthand what had happened. At first, not knowing him, I preferred not to meet him. Later, however, after reading her report widely circulated in the various Columns, I decided – despite the risk – to do so in order to learn more about some details relating to the last confused minutes of Margherita’s life. This meeting took place in a tourist resort towards the end of June. I had never seen the person who introduced himself before and never saw him again afterward. He was a man greatly afflicted by the “trouble” that had happened and extremely disturbed by the mistakes made and the deaths that had resulted. I listened to him in silence. However, I also mentioned that meeting thirty years ago in the book Open face».
“Here is what I believe remains to be said more”
«However, I didn’t say all that I believe remains to be said about one thing in that book: the way in which Margherita died. From the report written by her companion who was with her at the farmhouse, widely circulated in the Red Brigades, found in some searches and finally also published, it can in fact be deduced that she was killed “after the conflict”; although, of course, that relationship does not constitute proof. Today, however, with the autopsy in hand, we can be certain that her fatal blow to a classic “underarm”, from left to right, which horizontally perforated her two lungs; fatal blow and dealt with professional competence. There can no longer be any doubts about this, as about the fact that Margherita was unarmed at that moment and her hands were raised. Two questions then remain unanswered: “Who really pulled the trigger? It was necessary?”. Until today I have not wanted to raise these very sad questions nor would I have done so if this strange communication that was notified to me on February 14, 2023 in which I read that I am “being investigated” hadn’t ripped them from my heart, somehow bringing them back into the open » concludes Curcio.
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