Italian police probe Red Brigades-style shooting
GENOA, May 8 — Police believe the gunmen who wounded the head of a nuclear engineering company in Italy yesterday could be members of a radical Marxist-Leninist group or anarchists involved in eco-extremism, investigative sources said.
Ansaldo Nucleare chief executive Roberto Adinolfi, 53, was shot in the calf at short range as he left his house in the port city of Genoa, recalling the style of left-wing Red Brigades that spread violence across Italy in the 1970s and 1980s.
“The style of the attack is clearly reminiscent of the Red Brigades,” an investigative source told Reuters today.
“If nobody claims the attack by the end of tomorrow, this would be an anomaly,” a second investigative source said.
The two gunmen, who approached Adinolfi on a stolen motorcycle, wore helmets and could not be identified. They used a Russian semi-automatic Tokarev pistol, used in Italy by far-left extremists and criminals, an investigative source said.
Local media said the attack could also be linked to Ansaldo Nucleare’s dealings in eastern Europe, where the company is selling its know-how on managing toxic waste after a national referendum rejected the use of nuclear power in Italy for the second time last year.
Ansaldo Nucleare is a small unit of Ansaldo Energia, controlled by Italian defence conglomerate Finmeccanica , Italy’s biggest industrial group after Fiat.
The Ansaldo group had been a target of the Red Brigades in one of the earliest episodes of violence in the 1970s.
Federico Santolini, who heads the orthopedic department at the Genoa hospital where Adinolfi underwent surgery, said he had spent a quiet night and he would soon be returning home.
Austerity measures by the government of Prime Minister Mario Monti to control Italy’s public debt have caused mounting resentment, although protests have generally been peaceful and there have been no real signs of organised political violence. — Reuters
