Italian President Sergio Mattarella on
Friday commemorated the deadly August 2, 1980 bombing of
Bologna's train station - the "theatre of a ruthless neofascist
subversive strategy".
Expressing a "profound feeling of solidarity" to the victims'
families and the city of Bologna on the 44th anniversary of the
massacre, the president said such a strategy was "nourished by
the complicity of subversive factions that attempted to attack
the freedom conquered by Italians".
He stressed that the deadly attack was "one of the most tragic
events in our republican history".
The Bologna massacre was a terrorist bombing of the Bologna
Centrale railway station in Bologna, Italy, on the morning of 2
August 1980, which killed 85 people and wounded over 200.
It was Italy's deadliest terrorist attack of the 25-year 'Years
of Lead' of rightist and leftist militant violence.
Several members of the neo-fascist terrorist organization Nuclei
Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR, Armed Revolutionary Nuclei) were
sentenced for the bombing, although the group denied
involvement.
Other theories have been proposed, especially in correlation
with the rightist 'strategy of tension' designed to keep the
Italian Communist Party (PCI) out of power.
The bombing is the fourth deadliest terrestrial terrorist attack
in Western Europe behind the Nice attack in July 2016, the Paris
attacks in November 2015, and the Madrid train bombings in March
2004.
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