 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
 |
 |
|
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
|
|
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Special Features Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Did Mossad murder Moro?
By Samia NkrumahLast week in Rome, a parliamentary commission of inquiry charged with investigating the role played by foreign security services in Italian post-war politics created a stir by announcing that it will be examining the possible involvement of Mossad, the Israeli secret service, in the kidnapping and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro along with five of his bodyguards in 1978.
The "Moro affair" remains one of the most traumatic unsolved "mysteries" of the last 50 years. In particular, it is still a thorn in the side for certain senior politicians now trying to rebuild their parties and careers in the "new" Italy -- particularly for those Christian Democrats, Moro's colleagues, who were in power at the time, and who are widely suspected of having failed to do all they could to avert their senior colleague's death.
In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, the chairman of the "Commissione stragi", Senator Giovanni Pellegrino, defended the decision to pursue the hypothesis of an Israeli link in the Moro affair. Pellegrino said, "The need to pursue this line of investigation by no means proves the involvement of Mossad, but it does point to the [current] direction of the investigation."
The commission's decision comes hot on the heels of the publication two weeks ago of Judge Carlo Mastelloni's report on the 1973 explosion of the Argo 16, an Italian military aircraft. "Mastelloni concluded in his monumental report that Mossad downed the Argo 16," explained Pellegrino. Shortly before the incident, the plane had been used to carry two Palestinians to a safe haven in Libya, despite the fact that the Israelis had wanted them to stand trial in Italy. Pellegrino confirmed that the 3,500-page report holds Mossad responsible for a number of other incidents on Italian territory, and that the Israeli agency in effect served as the operational arm of a number of foreign secret services.
Renato Curco, founder and leader of the Italian Red Brigades, has renounced violence. It remains to be seen whether all the violence attributed to the brigades was of their own making
(photo:AP)
According to Pellegrino, the commission's attention was also directed towards Mossad by the recently published memoirs of General Francesco Delfino, who worked for the Italian secret services up until 1987. Delfino, whose final post before he retired included a three-year stay in Egypt, had previously testified before the "Commissione stragi".
Pellegrino added, "Mastelloni's report showed that there was an organic link between Ordine Nuovo, a right-wing terrorist group, and the Mossad. Despite the anti-semitism of most right-wingers, some sought alliances with Mossad and with certain other military secret services." In particular, Mossad is now suspected of being behind the death of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, a well-known left-wing publisher who was killed by explosives he was carrying, supposedly while preparing a bomb.
Pellegrino pointed out that Moro was abducted just before the compromesso storico -- the historic compromise that would have brought the Communists to power in a coalition with the Christian Democrats -- was due to be enacted. Moro had been one of the great champions of this plan to bring the left in from the cold.
Defending the hypothesis of Mossad's involvement against the accusation that there are no hard facts to back it up, only assumptions, Pellegrino said that while it was important not to draw premature conclusions, the fact remains that a number of former Mossad directors are presently being tried in connection with the Argo 16 case. In this context, it seems very possible that Mossad was taking a close interest in what was happening in Italy at the time. While denying that he said that Moro had been killed for being "too pro-Arab", as some press reports have stated, Pellegrino did say that it was only logical that if Moro was pro-Arab, then Mossad might have considered him a threat to Israel.
That said, there is a general mood of caution -- not to say scepticism -- in political circles here over any and all hypotheses concerning the Moro case. Over the years, countless theories have been advanced to account for the former prime minister's murder, and yet not one of them has been proven true. However, it is generally accepted that foreign secret services have in the past wielded considerable influence over the Italian domestic political scene. It is therefore far from impossible that they may have played a role in Moro's death, too.
The one uncontested fact about the Moro case is the involvement of the Italian Red Brigades. Several Brigade members were eventually convicted in Rome on charges of abducting and murdering Moro. However, it has often been claimed that the Brigades -- who were later wiped out by the Italian security forces -- did not act alone, and indeed lacked the capacity to carry out such a complex operation, especially in the centre of the capital city. While doubt still clings to every allegation that is advanced, the mere fact that the investigation into Moro's death continues to this day indicates that much has so far been left unsaid. The implication, increasingly, is that the Brigades were manipulated or infiltrated by foreign secret service personnel.
"As time passes, one gets the impression that the Red Brigades were manipulated," Pellegrino admitted. He told the Weekly that a former head of the Italian secret services, Admiral Martini, questioned by the "Commissione stragi", had said that it is impossible to understand the history of Italy without taking into account that foreign intelligence services enjoyed an almost completely free hand in what was effectively a frontier country between the East and the West.
In the 11 years of its life to date, the commission of inquiry has already ordered two expert reports on possible foreign involvement, one concerning America and the other Russia. "But it'll be difficult to get results," admitted Pellegrino, "unless the parliamentary investigation is backed up with a judicial investigation."
Commenting on Pellegrino's statement that Mossad may have been involved in Moro's murder, Israel's ambassador to Rome, Yehuda Millo, described the allegations as "science-fiction". However, as Pellegrino pointed out, the ambassador had nothing to say about the Argo 16 case.
