Adriano Sofri
Encyclopedia
Adriano Sofri is an Italian intellectual
, a journalist
and a writer.
Former leader of the autonomist movement Lotta Continua
("Continuous Struggle"') in the 1960s, he was arrested in 1988 and convicted to 22 years of prison, having been found guilty of being the instigator of the murder of Luigi Calabresi
, a police officer, gold medal of Italian Republic for civil valour. Sofri, and the others comrades convicted with him, have always proclaimed their innocence. However, recently in an interview Sofri has admitted a moral culpability in the homicide. The charges against them rested on the testimony of a pentito
("collaborator of justice"), Leonardo Marino. In prison, Sofri writes in various newspapers, such as Il Foglio
, La Repubblica
and even Panorama.
on 17 May 1972. The charges against them were based on testimony provided by Leonardo Marino, an ex-activist who self-accused himself, sixteen years later, of having taken part to the assassination of Calabresi. Marino confessed that the assassination had been decided by the leaders of Lotta Continua
, Sofri and Pietrostefani, who put him and another militant, Ovidio Bompressi, in charge of the execution. Marino claimed he was driving the car, while Bompressi had allegedly executed Calabresi. Thus, Lotta Continua, or, as the Court declared it, an "illegal structure" inside Lotta Continua, has been sentenced to be responsible for Calabresi's death, which marked the first political assassination of the anni di piombo.
Certainly, Lotta Continua remains a prime suspect, since Calabresi had been the objective of an extensive press campaign by the movement's newspaper because of his alleged involvement in the death of anarchist
Pino Pinelli
. Specifically, as of 15 December 1969, the Lotta Continua newspaper directed by Sofri explicitly claimed that Calabresi had to be "shot dead" and the press campaign against the Police officer violently continued during the next few days. Pinelli, a young anarchist militant, had been detained as it was suspected to be involved in the 12 December 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing
, an allegation that was dropped after his death. While being interrogated, Pinelli fell from a window of the police building in Milan
on 15 December 1969. All the policemen present in the interrogation room claimed that he committed suicide
, but many leftist circles and press fueled the Lotta Continua campaign because they believed him to have been murdered and, supposedly, found many inconsistencies in the policemen's version. It is worth noting that Calabresi and other police officers were investigated for Pinelli's death, but these charges were eventually dropped in 1975 since the prosecutor found no evidence either for suicide or for an assassination, and suggested the possibility of an "active faintness".
of pentito
("collaborator of justice") Leonardo Marino, who accused Sofri of having ordered him, as chief of Lotta Continua, to assassinate Calabresi, during a meeting held on a piazza after a demonstration in Pisa
on 13 May 1972, in the name of Franco Serantini, an anarchist who died from lack of care in the police station following a demonstration in the same city on May 5.
Sofri denied having talked with Marino at this alleged meeting, pointing out that on this day, it was pouring rain, and that the town was under surveillance by the police. This was confirmed by other participants of the demonstration.
Various pieces of evidence for the trial have disappeared throughout the years. First, the clothes which Calabresi was wearing on the day of his death were never found. Second, the blue Fiat 125
(which Marino declared beige) was put to the breaker's yard on 31 December 1988, five months after the arrest of the indicted members of Lotta Continua (although it had been conserved since 25 August 1972). Third, the bullet which killed Calabresi was put to auction on 15 April 1990, after a flooding which had damaged the office holding the material evidence of the crime
Marino initially claimed that the weight of his conscience had pushed him to confess his crimes, which he allegedly had done on 19 July 1988 to the carabinieri
in Ameglia
, a little town, before going to Milan
where he allegedly described with precision the assassination of Calabresi — remaining before to general facts — to Ferdinando Pomarici, substitute of the attorney, and investigative magistrate Antonio Lombardi. However, on 20 February 1990, two years after the beginning of the trial, a witness of the Court, carabinieri officer Emilio Rossi, declared that Marino had first presented himself to the carabinieris in Ameglia on 2 July 1988. Although historian Carlo Ginzburg
has interrogated himself on the possibility that Marino's contact with the carabinieri were to be traced to May, in any cases, the judicial documents did not register this period during which Marino was in contact with the Italian authorities.
A lot of other discrepancies in Marino's testimony against Sofri have led many to suspect the reliability of his words, on which Sofri's sentence exclusively relies. These include his first account, where he claimed that Bompressi and Sofri ordered him the assassination, whether that later became only Sofri; his description of the itinerary that he allegedly followed immediately after the crime, during which he said he had gone in the exact opposite direction of where the Fiat had been finally abandoned; confusion about when his qualms of conscience came to arise, as soon as 1972 or in "the last three years"; the fact that he had been convicted for armed robbery on 1987, thus making his claims about his moral concerns dubious ...
Furthermore, the description of the crime scene by eyewitnesses contradicted those of Leonardo Marino. But the Cour d'assise of Milan, headed by the president Manlio Minale, finally decided that Marino's testimony was completely reliable, which was allegedly not the case of those various eyewitnesses invoked during the trial.
On the other hand, it has to be noticed that Marino's confession was given so much time after the facts that some contradictions are somewhat unavoidable.
to serve 22 years in the prison of Pisa
on 2 May 1990. Pietrostefani and Bompressi also received 22 years, while Marino was sentenced to 11 years. Sofri announced his decision not to make appeal, as such an act would, in his eyes, legitimate the court's judgement — and he adamantly maintained his innocence. In 1991, the Court of Appeals validate the sentence for the others indicted members of Lotta Continua, but it was reverted the following year by the Court of Cassation
. Sofri and others were acquitted in 1994. However, after the Cassation's cancellation of the previous judgment, a new trial took place, and they were convicted, again, to 22 years of prison, in 1995 — apart of the pentito Leonardo Marino, who benefited from the Statute of Limitations
for the crimes (except Sofri, Marino and others were also accused of armed robberies). The Court of Cassation confirmed this last judgment in 1997. Pietrostefani, who was residing in France, and no chances of being extradited
as French law would have considered the crimes to have fallen under the Statute of Limitations, voluntarily returned to Italy (as would, in another affair, philosopher Antonio Negri
) in order to struggle, alongside his comrades, for the recognition of their innocence.
and La Repubblica
Italian daily newspapers, with the first one right-wing, but edited by his friend and former PCI member Giuliano Ferrara
, and the second left-wing oriented. He also writes editorials in Panorama, a conservative newsmagazine owned by Berlusconi
's Mondadori publishing house.
At the end of November, 2005, Adriano Sofri suffered Boerhaave syndrome
while in jail. He was moved to a hospital and may be free to return home after being released from the hospital. Justice Minister Roberto Castelli
refused in December 2005 to grant him pardon. However, after the defeat of the Silvio Berlusconi
government during the April 2006 election
, the new Justice Minister
, Clemente Mastella
, announced that Sofri could be pardoned before the end of the calendar year, although he continues to refuse to ask for a pardon, saying such a request would be admission of guilt. But the Justice Minister declared that "The truth is that 34 years after the events Sofri is a very sick person to whom one can offer a spontaneously humane gesture."
Carlo Ginzburg
, who usually studies witch-hunt
s during the Inquisition
and microhistory
, has written a book concerning this alleged "miscarriage of justice
" and the relations, and differences, between the works of a judge and of a historian.
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
, a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and a writer.
Former leader of the autonomist movement Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua was a far left extra-parliamentary organization in Italy. It was founded in autumn 1969 by a split in the student-worker movement of Turin, which had started militant activity at the universities and factories such as Fiat...
("Continuous Struggle"') in the 1960s, he was arrested in 1988 and convicted to 22 years of prison, having been found guilty of being the instigator of the murder of Luigi Calabresi
Luigi Calabresi
Luigi Calabresi , recipient of a gold medal of the Italian Republic for civil valor, was a commissioner of Italian police in Milan....
, a police officer, gold medal of Italian Republic for civil valour. Sofri, and the others comrades convicted with him, have always proclaimed their innocence. However, recently in an interview Sofri has admitted a moral culpability in the homicide. The charges against them rested on the testimony of a pentito
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
("collaborator of justice"), Leonardo Marino. In prison, Sofri writes in various newspapers, such as Il Foglio
Il Foglio
Il Foglio is a Italian centre-right daily newspaper, with circulation of about 13,000 copies per day. It was founded in 1996 by the Italian journalist and politician Giuliano Ferrara, after he left as editor of the magazine Panorama- Characteristics :...
, La Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...
and even Panorama.
Activism and initial controversy
On 28 July 1988, he was arrested with Ovidio Bompressi and Giorgio Pietrostefani for the murder of police officer Luigi CalabresiLuigi Calabresi
Luigi Calabresi , recipient of a gold medal of the Italian Republic for civil valor, was a commissioner of Italian police in Milan....
on 17 May 1972. The charges against them were based on testimony provided by Leonardo Marino, an ex-activist who self-accused himself, sixteen years later, of having taken part to the assassination of Calabresi. Marino confessed that the assassination had been decided by the leaders of Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua was a far left extra-parliamentary organization in Italy. It was founded in autumn 1969 by a split in the student-worker movement of Turin, which had started militant activity at the universities and factories such as Fiat...
, Sofri and Pietrostefani, who put him and another militant, Ovidio Bompressi, in charge of the execution. Marino claimed he was driving the car, while Bompressi had allegedly executed Calabresi. Thus, Lotta Continua, or, as the Court declared it, an "illegal structure" inside Lotta Continua, has been sentenced to be responsible for Calabresi's death, which marked the first political assassination of the anni di piombo.
Certainly, Lotta Continua remains a prime suspect, since Calabresi had been the objective of an extensive press campaign by the movement's newspaper because of his alleged involvement in the death of anarchist
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
Pino Pinelli
Giuseppe Pinelli
Giuseppe "Pino" Pinelli was an Italian railway worker and anarchist activist, who died in the custody of Italian police in 1969 after being arrested. Pinelli was a member of the Milan Circle "Ponte della Ghisolfa". He was also the secretary of the Italian branch of the Anarchist Black Cross...
. Specifically, as of 15 December 1969, the Lotta Continua newspaper directed by Sofri explicitly claimed that Calabresi had to be "shot dead" and the press campaign against the Police officer violently continued during the next few days. Pinelli, a young anarchist militant, had been detained as it was suspected to be involved in the 12 December 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing
Piazza Fontana bombing
The Piazza Fontana Bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on December 12, 1969 at 16:37, when a bomb exploded at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88...
, an allegation that was dropped after his death. While being interrogated, Pinelli fell from a window of the police building in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
on 15 December 1969. All the policemen present in the interrogation room claimed that he committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
, but many leftist circles and press fueled the Lotta Continua campaign because they believed him to have been murdered and, supposedly, found many inconsistencies in the policemen's version. It is worth noting that Calabresi and other police officers were investigated for Pinelli's death, but these charges were eventually dropped in 1975 since the prosecutor found no evidence either for suicide or for an assassination, and suggested the possibility of an "active faintness".
Trial
In the long series of trials, that spanned about two decades and that alternated acquittals with sentences of guilt, the evidence against Sofri was only the confessionConfession
This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...
of pentito
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
("collaborator of justice") Leonardo Marino, who accused Sofri of having ordered him, as chief of Lotta Continua, to assassinate Calabresi, during a meeting held on a piazza after a demonstration in Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
on 13 May 1972, in the name of Franco Serantini, an anarchist who died from lack of care in the police station following a demonstration in the same city on May 5.
Sofri denied having talked with Marino at this alleged meeting, pointing out that on this day, it was pouring rain, and that the town was under surveillance by the police. This was confirmed by other participants of the demonstration.
Various pieces of evidence for the trial have disappeared throughout the years. First, the clothes which Calabresi was wearing on the day of his death were never found. Second, the blue Fiat 125
Fiat 125
The Fiat 125 is a large family car introduced by Fiat in 1967 and produced by them until 1972. Derivatives were built under license outside Italy until the 1990s...
(which Marino declared beige) was put to the breaker's yard on 31 December 1988, five months after the arrest of the indicted members of Lotta Continua (although it had been conserved since 25 August 1972). Third, the bullet which killed Calabresi was put to auction on 15 April 1990, after a flooding which had damaged the office holding the material evidence of the crime
Marino initially claimed that the weight of his conscience had pushed him to confess his crimes, which he allegedly had done on 19 July 1988 to the carabinieri
Carabinieri
The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...
in Ameglia
Ameglia
Ameglia is a comune in the Province of La Spezia in the Italian region Liguria, located about 90 km southeast of Genoa and about 11 km southeast of La Spezia.Ameglia borders the following municipalities: Lerici, Sarzana....
, a little town, before going to Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
where he allegedly described with precision the assassination of Calabresi — remaining before to general facts — to Ferdinando Pomarici, substitute of the attorney, and investigative magistrate Antonio Lombardi. However, on 20 February 1990, two years after the beginning of the trial, a witness of the Court, carabinieri officer Emilio Rossi, declared that Marino had first presented himself to the carabinieris in Ameglia on 2 July 1988. Although historian Carlo Ginzburg
Carlo Ginzburg
Carlo Ginzburg is a noted historian and proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for his Il formaggio e I vermi which examined the beliefs of an Italian heretic, Menocchio, from Montereale Valcellina.- Biography :The son of Natalia Ginzburg and Leone Ginzburg, he was born...
has interrogated himself on the possibility that Marino's contact with the carabinieri were to be traced to May, in any cases, the judicial documents did not register this period during which Marino was in contact with the Italian authorities.
A lot of other discrepancies in Marino's testimony against Sofri have led many to suspect the reliability of his words, on which Sofri's sentence exclusively relies. These include his first account, where he claimed that Bompressi and Sofri ordered him the assassination, whether that later became only Sofri; his description of the itinerary that he allegedly followed immediately after the crime, during which he said he had gone in the exact opposite direction of where the Fiat had been finally abandoned; confusion about when his qualms of conscience came to arise, as soon as 1972 or in "the last three years"; the fact that he had been convicted for armed robbery on 1987, thus making his claims about his moral concerns dubious ...
Furthermore, the description of the crime scene by eyewitnesses contradicted those of Leonardo Marino. But the Cour d'assise of Milan, headed by the president Manlio Minale, finally decided that Marino's testimony was completely reliable, which was allegedly not the case of those various eyewitnesses invoked during the trial.
On the other hand, it has to be noticed that Marino's confession was given so much time after the facts that some contradictions are somewhat unavoidable.
Convictions
Sofri was eventually convicted on the sole words of Leonardo Marino, and sentencedSentence (law)
In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...
to serve 22 years in the prison of Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
on 2 May 1990. Pietrostefani and Bompressi also received 22 years, while Marino was sentenced to 11 years. Sofri announced his decision not to make appeal, as such an act would, in his eyes, legitimate the court's judgement — and he adamantly maintained his innocence. In 1991, the Court of Appeals validate the sentence for the others indicted members of Lotta Continua, but it was reverted the following year by the Court of Cassation
Court of Cassation (Italy)
The Supreme Court of Cassation is the major court of last resort in Italy. It has its seat in the Rome Hall of Justice.The Court of Cassation exists also to “ensure the observation and the correct interpretation of law” by ensuring the same application of law in the inferior and appeal courts...
. Sofri and others were acquitted in 1994. However, after the Cassation's cancellation of the previous judgment, a new trial took place, and they were convicted, again, to 22 years of prison, in 1995 — apart of the pentito Leonardo Marino, who benefited from the Statute of Limitations
Statute of limitations
A statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system that sets the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings based on that event may be initiated...
for the crimes (except Sofri, Marino and others were also accused of armed robberies). The Court of Cassation confirmed this last judgment in 1997. Pietrostefani, who was residing in France, and no chances of being extradited
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
as French law would have considered the crimes to have fallen under the Statute of Limitations, voluntarily returned to Italy (as would, in another affair, philosopher Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri is an Italian Marxist sociologist and political philosopher.Negri is best-known for his co-authorship of Empire, and secondarily for his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political philosophy professor in his hometown university...
) in order to struggle, alongside his comrades, for the recognition of their innocence.
Imprisonment
The convictions were upheld, apparently definitively, in 2000. Sofri has always maintained his innocence and continues to do so to this day. He has become a respected columnist and intellectual, writing in Il FoglioIl Foglio
Il Foglio is a Italian centre-right daily newspaper, with circulation of about 13,000 copies per day. It was founded in 1996 by the Italian journalist and politician Giuliano Ferrara, after he left as editor of the magazine Panorama- Characteristics :...
and La Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...
Italian daily newspapers, with the first one right-wing, but edited by his friend and former PCI member Giuliano Ferrara
Giuliano Ferrara
Giuliano Ferrara is an Italian politician, journalist, founding editor of Il Foglio, and TV presenter.After the militancy in the PCI and PSI, in the nineties has become a supporter of Silvio Berlusconi, and finally one of the most intellectual representatives of Italian Theoconservativism-Life and...
, and the second left-wing oriented. He also writes editorials in Panorama, a conservative newsmagazine owned by Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
's Mondadori publishing house.
At the end of November, 2005, Adriano Sofri suffered Boerhaave syndrome
Boerhaave syndrome
Esophageal rupture is rupture of the esophageal wall due to vomiting. 56% of esophageal perforations are iatrogenic, usually due to medical instrumentation such as an endoscopy or paraesophageal surgery...
while in jail. He was moved to a hospital and may be free to return home after being released from the hospital. Justice Minister Roberto Castelli
Roberto Castelli
Roberto Castelli is an Italian politician. He was the Minister of Justice in the third Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi, he is a Senator and one of the main representatives of Lega Nord.- Career :...
refused in December 2005 to grant him pardon. However, after the defeat of the Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
government during the April 2006 election
Italian general election, 2006
In the Italian general election, 2006 for the renewal of the two Chambers of the Parliament of Italy held on April 9 and April 10, 2006 the incumbent prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the center-right House of Freedoms, was narrowly defeated by Romano Prodi, leader of the center-left The...
, the new Justice Minister
Italian Minister of Justice
This is a list of Italian Ministers of Justice since 1946.-External links:* *...
, Clemente Mastella
Clemente Mastella
Mario Clemente Mastella is an Italian politician. He is currently leader of Popular-UDEUR, a minor centrist Italian party. He was Minister of Labour in the Berlusconi government from 10 May 1994 to 17 January 1995, and Minister of Justice in the Prodi government from 17 May 2006 to 17 January 2008...
, announced that Sofri could be pardoned before the end of the calendar year, although he continues to refuse to ask for a pardon, saying such a request would be admission of guilt. But the Justice Minister declared that "The truth is that 34 years after the events Sofri is a very sick person to whom one can offer a spontaneously humane gesture."
Carlo Ginzburg
Carlo Ginzburg
Carlo Ginzburg is a noted historian and proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for his Il formaggio e I vermi which examined the beliefs of an Italian heretic, Menocchio, from Montereale Valcellina.- Biography :The son of Natalia Ginzburg and Leone Ginzburg, he was born...
, who usually studies witch-hunt
Witch-hunt
A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and lynching, but in historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official witchcraft trials...
s during the Inquisition
Medieval Inquisition
The Medieval Inquisition is a series of Inquisitions from around 1184, including the Episcopal Inquisition and later the Papal Inquisition...
and microhistory
Microhistory
Microhistory is the intensive historical investigation of a well defined smaller unit of research...
, has written a book concerning this alleged "miscarriage of justice
Miscarriage of justice
A miscarriage of justice primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. The term can also apply to errors in the other direction—"errors of impunity", and to civil cases. Most criminal justice systems have some means to overturn, or "quash", a wrongful...
" and the relations, and differences, between the works of a judge and of a historian.
External links
- December 13, 2005 ANSAANSA (news agency)ANSA , is the leading wire service in Italy, and one of the leaders among world news agencies. ANSA is a not-for-profit cooperative, whose members and owners are 36 leading news organizations in Italy. Its mission is the distribution of fair and objective news reporting.-History:ANSA was founded on...
cable - Website on Sofri's trials