39th anniversary of Moro kidnapping (2)

(ANSA) - Rome, March 16 - The 39th anniversary of the kidnapping of Christian Democrat (DC) statesman Aldo Moro was marked today at the Rome site where he was taken hostage and his police escort slaughtered by the Red Brigades (BR).
    Interior Minister Marco Minniti, accompanied by Rome Prefect Paola Basilone, Italian police chief Franco Gabrielli and the Carabinieri commander-in-chief, Tullio Del Sette, laid a laurel wreath and stopped for a moment of silent prayer at via Fani, the street where Moro's car and escort were ambushed and his five-man escort - three police and two Carabinieri - was gunned down.
    Later, President Sergio Mattarella laid a wreath of flowers at the spot. Moro was kidnapped on March 16, 1978 on the same day that parliament voted its confidence in Giulio Andreotti's DC government, the first government which the Italian Communist Party (PCI) did not vote against and thus indirectly offered its consent.
    Moro's ordeal lasted 55 days during which Andreotti's policy of offering no concessions to the BR won out over efforts in his own party and, especially, in the Socialist Party of Bettino Craxi, to negotiate Moro's release.
    Moro's bullet-ridden body was found May 9 in the trunk of a car strategically parked between the headquarters of the PCI and the DC.