Lazio region spokesman says Bologna bombing terrorists innocent, sparking furore

(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 6 - Marcello De Angelis, the head of communications for the Lazio regional government, was at the centre of a major political furore on Sunday for saying that three of the far-right terrorists convicted of the 1980 Bologna train station bombing are innocent.
    The attack killed 85 people and injured 200 more, making it the worst of Italy's 'Years of Lead' of political violence in the 1970s and 80s.
    De Angelis said via social media that he knew "for certain" that three of the five people convicted of the bombing, Giusva Fioravanti, Francesca Mambro and Luigi Ciavardini, former members of the NAR right-wing terrorist group, "had nothing to do with the Bologna massacre".
    He said the August 2 anniversary of the bombing "is always a very difficult day for anyone who knows the truth, which every year is trampled over, even by the highest figures of the State".
    The comments sparked outrage from the parties opposed to Governor Francesco Rocca's right-wing regional executive in Lazio, who said De Angelis was trying to re-write history and called for him to quit or be fired.
    "What Marcello De Angelis, who is not a simple citizen but the institutional spokesperson of the Lazio Region, wrote on his Facebook profile is serious and unacceptable," Daniele Leodori, the head of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) in Lazio, and Mario Ciarla, the PD's whip in the regional assembly, said in a joint statement.
    "It is an attempt to re-write history about the Bologna massacre, even though the judicial truth is written in black and white.
    "We ask Governor Rocca to distance himself (from the comments) and for De Angelis to step down.
    "Someone who writes things like this cannot be the head of communications of our region".
    Emilia Romagna Governor Stefano Bonaccini, also of the PD, said the comments were "despicable and mendacious.
    "He should come to Bologna and say these things," he added.
    De Angelis, a former member of the Terza Posizione (Third Position) neo-fascist group, responded to the row by comparing himself to Giordano Bruno, the Italian philosopher burned at the stake in 1600 by the Catholic Church for heresy.
    "I said what I think without fear of the consequences," De Angelis said on Facebook.
    "If I have to pay for this and be set alight like Giordano Bruno for having breached a dogma, I am proud to do so".
    Premier Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, came under fire from several opposition politicians on the 43rd anniversary of the Bologna bombing this week for not specifying that the attack was of a neo-fascist nature, something President Sergio Mattarella did. (ANSA).