Red Brigades killer held in Cairo
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Moro's bullet-riddled body was found in the boot of a car in central Rome in May, 1978.
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ROME, Italy (Reuters) -- Italian and Egyptian police at Cairo airport have arrested a Red Brigades guerrilla who took part in the 1978 kidnap and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, police in Rome say.
Rita Algranati, 46, was condemned in absentia in 1993 to life imprisonment for aiding and abetting Moro's murder and she is suspected of involvement in three other killings. She had been on the run since 1981.
Police also caught another Red Brigades fugitive, Maurizio Falessi, in the same Cairo swoop Tuesday night. Falessi, 50, was condemned in absentia in 1989 to 11 years imprisonment for the attempted murder of a politician and other crimes.
Algranati and Falessi were about to leave Egypt for an unnamed African country and were traveling with false documents when they were caught. Police immediately flew them to Rome where they are in custody.
The ultra-left Red Brigades urban guerrillas terrorized Italy during the "years of lead" in the 1970s and early 1980s, so-called for the bullets that littered streets after attacks by armed groups from both far-left and far-right.
"Twenty years after they went on the run, the state has brought to justice two terrorists whose actions bloodied Italy during the years of lead," Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu told reporters.
"Those who, still today, mean to commit political violence, know that sooner or later they will be found by the patient forces of the state and of the law," he said.
Moro, then head of the Christian Democratic party, Italy's largest, was abducted in a street in Rome and four of his bodyguards were killed in the kidnapping.
The Red Brigades held Moro for 55 days in an apartment in Rome before killing him and dumping his body in the boot of a car near the Rome headquarters of the Christian Democrats and Communist parties.
A shadowy organization calling itself the Red Brigades and thought to be a smaller, modern incarnation of the original group claimed responsibility for two political slayings in 1999 and 2000, raising fears of a new era of violence.
Police have this year arrested 12 suspected members of the new Red Brigades and discovered some 220 pounds of explosives in Rome.
Copyright 2004
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
