The search for procedural truth as an element to prevent and counter violent extremism

• In Event: EXTR4 Terrorism and Extremism: Legal perspectives and the courts

Abstract

On May 28, 1974, a bomb exploded in Brescia – Italy – during an anti-fascist demonstration called by the trade unions, causing the death of 8 people and wounding over 100.
After an unusually long procedural process, in 2017 the Court of Cassation, confirming the sentence of the Court of Appeal of Milan, sanctioned the criminal responsibility of the instigators of this attack.
Questions remained open and the responsibilities of the alleged perpetrators of the attack in Piazza della Loggia (place in which the attack occurred) remained open.
For this reason, 50 years after the massacre, the legal case continues despite many difficulties: at the end of February 2024 the first hearing was held against R.Z, now an American citizen, at the time of the events a young man belonging to subversiveright-wing groups of neo-fascist; at the beginning of March 2024 the trial against R.T, now a Swiss citizen, who was underage at the time of the events and similarly belonging to the same subversive groups, opens in the juvenile court.
The exhausting search for the judicial truth in which the Brescia community and the association of the families of the victims of the massacre have been constantly engaged for half a century responds to the precise need to give a face and a name to the perpetrators of the terrorist attack but, on the other side, offers a contribution to the needs of prevention of violent extremism in Italy. The research try to underline the link between the search for judicial truth and the social engagement in PCVE.

Authors

• Luisa Ravagnani, University of Brescia

• Carlo Alberto Romano, university of Brescia