Giusva Fioravanti

Giuseppe Valerio "Giusva" Fioravanti (born 28 March 1958) is an Italian who, with Francesca Mambro, was a leading figure in a far right terrorist group Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari ("Armed Revolutionary Nuclei" or NAR). Fioravanti appeared in films and television from a young age, and in his early teens was the most famous child in Italy. He and Mambro were fugitives wanted for terrorist offences by their early twenties, they spent a further period on the run while wanted for the Bologna bombing. Both were captured after gunfights with police. Although Fioravanti, Mambro and a third NAR mamber were convicted of the bombing, there were those who thought that a higher level of the conspiracy was never uncovered. Fioravanti and Mambro admit carrying out terrorist murders, but have always denied any involvement in the Bologna station bomb.

Fioravanti was born in Rovereto to a Roman family, his father was a television presenter. As a child actor, Fioravanti starred in a popular series of the 1960s, "La famiglia Benvenuti", with Enrico Maria Salerno and Valeria Valeri playing his parents roles. Fioravanti's younger brother Cristiano had joined a far right youth section aged 13, he acquired a reputation for relishing violent confrontations with leftists. According to Fioravanti, his original motivation for associating with far right militants was not political, but a desire to protect his brother. Fioravanti's parents tried get him away from the escalating violence by sending him to study in the US for a year, he returned to make his last film, which was released in 1975. In early 1977 he was charged with assault and given 40 days for possession of a pistol. Fioravanti abandoned university studies to join a paratroop unit of the Italian army; he was repeatedly punished for disciplinary infractions. After a crate of hand grenades was stolen while he was on guard duty, Fioravanti was court martialed for leaving his post and sentenced to several months in a military prison.

Mambro was the daughter of a policeman (who died in 1979), and from a relatively modest background. She met Fioravanti at a far right university club. As activists for the Italian Social Movement they were targeted by political opponents as fascists (Fioravanti himself rejected the label). In a 1997 interview Mambro said she identified with far right wing youth as underdogs who tended to be on the receiving end of violence. Some of her friends died, including a young Social Movement protester who Mambro saw being shot dead by a Carabinieri captain during disturbances that followed the Acca Larentia killings. The incident alienated Fioravanti's associates, and led to riots during which some Italian Social Movement youths shot at police. Mambro later said the experience made her decide to carry a gun although her personal involvement with Fioravanti played a major part in her taking up terrorism.

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