Luigi Calabresi

Luigi Calabresi (Rome, 14 November 1937 – Milan, 17 May 1972), was a police officer and Italian State Police official in Milan, Italy. His 1972 murder triggered a wave of political violence.

Calabresi was born 14 November 1937 into a middle-class Roman family. His father was a wine and oil merchant. He attended the classical secondary school San Leone Magno and graduated from university with a law degree in 1964 with a thesis on the Sicilian mafia. He chose to enter the police over a career as an attorney and was sent to Milan, where he was assigned to investigate anarchist groups.

On December 12, 1969, a bomb exploded in the Milan office of the National Agricultural Bank in Piazza Fontana. 17 people died and 88 were wounded. Among those interrogated as suspects was anarchist railway worker Giuseppe Pinelli. On the night of 15 December, Pinelli died from a fall from a fourth floor window of police headquarters. Theories of what caused Pinelli's fall included murder, suicide, and an accident due to loss of consciousness. In July 3, 1970, judicial authorities closed the case as an "accidental death". A second inquiry in 1975 confirmed this by ruling Pinelli's death due to an "active illness". The 1975 tribunal further found that Calabresi was not in the room at the time of Pinelli's death. However, elements of the far left did not accept the determination.

Despite being exonerated, the far-left Lotta Continua accused Calabresi of being responsible for the death of Pinelli. For two years he was the focus of a media campaign, led in part by the weekly L'Espresso, that held him responsible for Pinelli's death. Calabresi was shot in the street and murdered in Milan on 17 May 1972 on his way to work. He was deputy leader of the political section of the Milan office of the Italian State Police when he was murdered. Calabresi's murder inaugurated an era of political violence by both left and right in Italy.. The judge of the first trial was the President of criminal court of Milano Carlo Biotti.

Lotta Continua disbanded in 1976..

In 1988, a former member of Lotta Continua, Leonardo Marino, confessed to having participated in the murder of Calabresi. In May of '90 Adriano Sofri, leader of Lotta Continua, along with members Giorgio Pietrostefani and Ovidio Bompressi were convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison. Leonardo Marino was sentenced to 11 years.

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