Aldo Moro kidnapping: letter from the Red Brigades sold at auction

ROME (Parliament Politics Magazine): A disputed letter claiming accountability for kidnapping the statesman of Italy, Aldo Moro was auctioned off.

The historical document was sold for €26,000 online on Thursday by Bertolami auction house of Rome, well exceeding its original estimate.

Critics questioned if selling the booklet, which was linked to Italy’s Red Brigades, was appropriate.

Moro was kidnapped by the Red Brigades in March 1978, and his death was discovered after a few months in the boot of a car in Rome.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the far-left gang was responsible for the injuries or deaths of hundreds of Italian entrepreneurs, politicians, judges and journalists.

Their most notorious crime was the assassination of Moro, a former prime minister and head of the Christian Democrats. When Moro was kidnapped, five of his bodyguards were found dead as well.

In Italy’s public records, there are copies of the letter of the Red Brigades claiming they were  responsible for Moro’s kidnapping.

The document’s auctioning, however, has sparked outrage among victims’ families and Italian lawmakers.

“These pages are dripping with blood, they can’t be bought and sold, they can’t become a collector’s item,” Mario Calabresi, the son of a police commissioner assassinated by another far-left group in 1972, stated.

He stated on Twitter, “The only place they can be kept is in places of memory to remind us of the barbarity that was terrorism.”

The Red Brigades insignia, a five-pointed star within a circle, was also used on the 80-line letter available at Bertolami’s.

The auction house didn’t say where it came from, only that it was a “dramatic propaganda text” that exposed the kidnapping’s goals.

A Democratic Party MP, Filippo Senso, said it was “extremely terrible” to acquire or sell “such a painful souvenir.”

The letter from the Red Brigades was originally priced at €600, but it was sold for €26,000 to an unidentified buyer.

 

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