Court Depositions of Three Red Brigadists

The Red Brigades, Italys major left-wing terrorist group, first gained international attention in 1978 when its members kidnapped and later assassinated former Prime Minister Aldo Moro. Since then, the group has survived a number of government-sponsored attempts at extermination, including the highly effective efforts of DIGOS, the counterterrorist agency headed until 1982 by General Alberto Dalla Chiesa. The Red Brigades Brigate Rosse, or BR were founded in 1968. The group engaged in domestic terrorism until December 1981, when it entered the realm of international terrorism by kidnapping an American, General James L. Dozier, the chief of administration and logistics at NATO land forces headquarters, in Verona. A crack Italian police squad rescued General Dozier in January 1982, but two years later the BR resurfaced to assassinate Leamon Hunt, the U.S. director-general of the civilian and military forces monitoring observance of the peace treaty in the Sinai peninsula. Then in March 1985, in an effort to call attention to a referendum on wage indexing, the BR killed Christian Democrat economist Ezio Tarantelli. The BR has published communiques after each operation and has issued other documents at frequent intervals, providing a wealth of information for analysts.