Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa

Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa

Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa (born September 27, 1920 in Saluzzo , Piedmont , † September 3, 1982 in Palermo , Sicily ) was a general of the Italian Carabinieri , famous for his fight against Italian terrorism in the 1970s.

Life

From 1966 to 1973 he was a colonel in Palermo in command of the Carabinieri Legion. Then he was promoted to general and commander of the Carabinieri division "Pastrengo" in Milan . In 1974 he became commander in the Piedmont - Aosta Valley region and organized the fight against terrorism in Turin . With the help of Silvano Girotto, he succeeded in September 1974 in arresting Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini , leading representatives of the Red Brigades terrorist organization . In 1977 he was made chiefly responsible for security in state prisons. From August 1978 he was charged with coordinating the fight against terrorism in all of Italy.

After the murder of the politician Aldo Moro, he intensified the hunt for the Red Brigades. He achieved some success in the identification and arrest of those responsible for the murder of Aldo Moro. Even before this work was completed, he was unexpectedly called to Sicily to end the state of emergency caused by the Mafia as police chief in Palermo . He often complained about the lack of support from the Italian state. On September 3, 1982, he and his wife Emanuela Setti Carraro, who had only married on July 12, died as a result of an assassination attempt by the Mafia. The traces in his hand in connection with the kidnapping of Aldo Moro have been lost.

At the memorial service on the day of his funeral in Palermo, there were memorable, violent tumult in front of the Church of San Domenico. Government officials in the mourning community were verbally abused by the crowd and pelted with change and spat at as a sign of contempt, so that they ultimately had to flee into their company cars. The President Sandro Pertini , who was also present, was exempt from these attacks and was viewed as impeccable in the relationship between the rulers and the Mafia, which people suspected of being.

On March 22, 2002, a court in Palermo sentenced the murderers Antonio Madonìa and Vincenzo Galatolo to life imprisonment, and Francesco Paolo Anzelmo and Calogero Ganci to 14 years in prison.

His son Nando Dalla Chiesa was involved in the anti-Mafia party La Rete .

In 1984 his short fight against the Mafia was filmed in the Italian-French feature film The 100 days of Palermo (Cento giorni a Palermo) with Lino Ventura in the lead role until he was murdered .

literature

The murder of the anti-mafia prefect dalla Chiesa or How Rome subverts the fight against the mafia. in: Regine Igel : Years of Terror. The dark side of the CIA in Italy. Munich 2006, pp. 362–388.