Giuseppe Pinelli

Giuseppe "Pino" Pinelli (21 October 1928 – 15 December 1969) was an Italian railroad worker and anarchist, who died while being detained by Italian police in 1969. Pinelli was a member of the Milan-based anarchist association named "Ponte della Ghisolfa". He was also the secretary of the Italian branch of the Anarchist Black Cross. His death, believed by many to have been caused by members of the police, inspired Nobel Prize laureat Dario Fo to write his famous play titled Accidental Death of an Anarchist.

Pinelli was born to Alfredo Pinelli and Rosa Malacarne. His family was working-class in one of the poorest areas of post-World War I Milan. Although he had to work many low income jobs, such as waiter and warehouseman, in order to make ends meet, he nonetheless found the time to read many books and become politically active throughout his youth. Among other political activities, he also worked with the anarchist group which published the weekly paper Il Libertario.

In 1954 he found work as a railroad fitter. In 1955 he married Licia Rognini, whom he had met at an evening class of Esperanto.

During the 1960s he continued anarchist activism. He organized young anarchists in the Gioventu Libertaria (Libertarian Youth) in 1962. He helped found the "Sacco and Vanzetti anarchist association" in 1965. He founded the Ponte della Ghisolfa association (named after the nearby bridge) in 1968.

On 12 December 1969 a bomb went off at the Piazza Fontana in Milan that killed 13 people and injured 88. Pinelli was picked up, along with other anarchists, for questioning regarding the attack. Just before midnight on 15 December 1969, Pinelli was seen to fall to his death from a fourth floor window of the Milan police station. Three police officers interrogating Pinelli, including Commissioner Luigi Calabresi, were put under investigation in 1971 for his death, but legal proceedings concluded it was due to accidental causes.

Pinelli's name has since been cleared, and the far-right Ordine Nuovo was accused of the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing (in 2001, three neo-fascists were convicted, a sentence overturned in March 2004; a fourth defendant, Carlo Digilio, was a suspected CIA informant who became a witness for the state and received immunity from prosecution).

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