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Title: Amedeo Bertolo Author: Stuart Christie Date: 22 November 2016 Language: en Topics: Amedeo Bertolo, obituary Source: Retrieved on 16th May 2021 from https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/rv170j
Another fine comrade gone! Just heard the news that Amedeo Bertolo, a
friend and comrade since May 1968, a pivotal figure in the Italian and
international anarchist movement, passed away this morning (22 November
[2016]) in Milan. Amedeo was, with others, including Giuseppe Pinelli, a
founding member of the Ponte della Ghisolfa anarchist group, the Croce
Nera Anarchica and its bulletin which later became the glossy monthly
āRevista Aā, and countless other anarchist and libertarian initiatives
and actions over the years. One such spectacular action was the 1962
kidnapping of Francoās vice-consul in Milan, Isu Elias ā the first
political kidnapping since the war. The abduction was in response to the
sentencing to death in September ā62, in Barcelona, of young Spanish
anarchist Jorge Conill Valls for anti-Francoist activities. Earlier that
year Amedeo had been involved in Defensa Interiorās actions inside Spain
with Conill Valls.
The kidnapping dominated the front pages of the international press for
days and triggered a campaign of anti-Francoist solidarity that brought
considerable pressure to bear on the Franco regime at several levels ā
from street demonstrations to the āhumanitarianā intervention by
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI (1963ā1978).
Conillās death sentence was commuted after three days to one of thirty
years imprisonment and Isu Elias was immediately released.
His kidnappers were quickly identified and jailed. The last of these,
Amedeo Bertolo, who had fled to France, spontaneously and quixotically
surrendered himself at the courthouse just as the trial in Varese
opened. The trial itself was covered by much of the Italian press as an
indictment of the Spanish fascist government rather than of the actions
of the young Italian anti-Francoists.
On 21 November all the accused were found guilty but received only
nominal sentences. For Bertolo (the sentence was six months imprisonment
for the kidnapping and 20 days for unlawfully bearing arms. The judges,
presided over by Judge Eugenio Zumin, recognised that the accused had
āacted on motives of particular moral and social importā and all were
found blameless and released on parole.
In the early summer of 1969 Bertolo and Pinelli told me they were
concerned about the neo-fascist-false-flag provocations (known as the
āstrategy of tensionā) that were then taking place across Italy under
the aegis of (although we didnāt know it at the time) of Federico
Umberto DāAmato, the head of the Confidential Affairs Bureau of the
Italian Interior Ministry and elements within the NATO Intelligence
Service and the Greek KYP (Central Service of Information). Leslie
Finer, the Observerās Greek correspondent, had published extracts from a
extraordinary secret document he had obtained from his contacts among
the exiled Greek opponents of the colonels. These extracts seemed to
confirme their worries and I was asked to try to obtain a copy of the
full report.
The dossier, compiled in May 1969 by an Italian-based Greek secret
service agent of the KYP (the Central Service of Information), was sent
originally to Giorgio Papadopolous, then president of the Greek council
of ministers (and a CIA asset). It reported on the results of the
Greek-funded terrorist campaign mounted in Italy in 1968 with the
assistance of various Italian fascist organisations, along with āsome
representatives from the Army and the Carabinieri.ā
On 15 May Michail Kottakis, head of the diplomatic office of the Greek
foreign ministry forwarded a copy of the document to Pampuras, Greeceās
ambassador in Rome. The report speculated on the chances of success of a
right-wing coup dāĆ©tat as a result of the escalation of the ongoing
terrorist campaign. It also assessed the activities of Luigi Turchi, an
MSI (fascist) deputy and a Mr P, possibly Pino Rauti, but, more
sensationally, it referred to the problems they had faced with regard to
the bombings at the FIAT stand at the Milan Trade Fair and the central
station and why they had been unable to do anything prior to 25 April.
It was as clear an admission of guilt as one could hope for; it also
referred to a major escalation of terrorist actions should Greece be
expelled from the Council of Europe.
The contents of this dossier were obviously of great interest to the
Italian Black Cross for the defence case of the six anarchists who had
been charged with these offences and were then being held in San
Vittorio prison.
Leslie Finer gave me a copy of the entire Greek dossier which I
forwarded immediately to Pinelli and Bertolo in Milan. But the
magistrate, Antonio Amati, refused to admit the dossier as evidence in
the case and the six remained banged up until they were finally
acquitted on 28 May 1971 ā two full years after their arrest. The real
perpetrators of the 25 April bombings ā and the August 1969 railway
bombings ā were Franco Freda and Giovanni Ventura, two neo-fascists and
Italian secret service agents both of whom were finally sentenced in
1981. They each received 15-year prison sentences for their part in
planning and carrying out the bombings.
On Friday, 12 December 1969, four bombs exploded in Rome and Milan. One
of these, planted in the Banca Nazionale dellāAgricoltura in the Piazza
Fontana in Milan, exploded a little after 4.30pm, claiming the lives of
16 people and wounding 100. Another, in the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
in Rome, injured 14, while two planted at the cenotaph in the Piazza
Venezia wounded 4. It was a day of massacre ā a state massacre as it
turned out. For Inspector Luigi Calabresi of the Milan Questura and his
boss Antonio Allegra there was, again, no doubt that anarchists were
responsible.
Of the 100 or so anarchists arrested that night and the following day,
27 were taken to San Vittorio prison, the rest being held for
interrogation in Milan police headquarters in the Via Fatebenefratelli.
Among those held were a number of Anarchist Black Cross (CNA) members,
including its secretary, Giuseppe Pinelli. After more than 48 hours in
police custody the 41-year old railwayman was taken to Calabresiās room
for questioning late in the evening of 15 December. The police officers
present were Luigi Calabresi, Vito Panessa, Giuseppe Caracuta, Carlo
Mainardi, Pietro Mucilli and Carabinieri lieutenant Savino Lograno.
Around midnight, Aldo Palumbo, a journalist from LāUnita was having a
smoke in the courtyard when he heard a series of thuds. Something was
bouncing off the cornices as it fell from the fourth floor. He raced
over to find the body of Pinelli sprawled in the flower bed. According
to the duty doctor Nazzareno Fiorenzano he had suffered āhorrific
abdominal injuries and a series of gashes on the head.ā The autopsy
showed that he was either dead or unconscious before he hit the ground.
A bruise very much like that caused by a karate blow was found on his
neck.
Amedeo Bertolo, who was at the Milan Questura that night, was at the
forefront of the 25-year campaign to clear Pinelliās name. On 13 March
1995, after more than 25 years and countless court cases and appeal
hearings, 26 Italian neo-fascists and secret service officers were
finally indicted for their involvement in the Piazza Fontana massacre.