The Via Fani ambush (or Via Fani massacre) was a bloody terrorist attack carried out by Red Brigades militants on the morning of March 16, 1978, on Via Mario Fani in Rome. The attack was aimed at killing members of Aldo Moro’s security detail and kidnapping the prominent Christian Democrat politician. This tragic, bloody act during the Years of Lead, successfully carried out by the Red Brigades, was the first act in the kidnapping of the politician, which concluded 55 days later with the discovery of Moro’s body in the trunk of a red Renault 4 on Via Michelangelo Caetani, having been killed by the Red Brigades. Decades later, Barbara Balzerani, the only woman present on the day of the attack, was released after a life sentence (under the provisions of the Gozzini law); Her then-partner, Mario Moretti, sentenced to six life sentences, has been on semi-liberty since 1997 and works for a cooperative that helps prisoners; Valerio Morucci, released in 1994 despite a life sentence, lives in Rome and works as an IT consultant; Adriana Faranda, Morucci’s former partner, after dissociating herself from the Red Brigades, obtained a sentence reduction and has been free since 1994; semi-liberty was also granted to Raffaele Fiore and Franco Bonisoli; Prospero Gallinari, one of the perpetrators of the massacre, died in 2013; Alessio Casimirri has never been in prison, despite a life sentence; the man, who escaped to South America, runs a restaurant in Nicaragua and married a local woman, thus acquiring citizenship—an insurmountable obstacle to the extradition that Italy has sought for years.
