President Sergio Mattarella said
Tuesday that it was the State's duty to shed full light on the
1980 bombing at Bologna train station on the 42nd anniversary of
the attack that killed 85 people and injured 200 more.
Five members of far-right terrorist groups were convicted in
relation to the bombing, the worst in Italy's 'Years of Lead' of
political violence of the 1970s and 80s.
But there are also suspicions that deviant elements within the
nation's security services may have been involved.
"The bomb that killed people who happened to be at the station
on that morning 42 years ago still reverberates with violence in
the depths of the country's conscience," Mattarella said.
"It was the act of cowardly men of unequalled inhumanity, one of
the most terrible of the history of the Italian Republic.
"It was a terrorist attack that sought to destabilize the
democratic institutions and sow fear, hitting ordinary citizens
going about their everyday tasks.
"On the day of the anniversary our thoughts go, above all, to
the relatives forced to suffer the greatest pain and who managed
to turn this into efforts as part of civil society to show
society as a whole that the strategies of terror will never
prevail over the Constitutional values of civil co-existence.
"The acts of solidarity of the relatives deserve the gratitude
of the Republic.
"Their tenacity supported the work of the magistrates and
servants of the State who managed to shed light on the culprits,
the criminal designs and the despicable complicity.
"The neo-fascist nature of the massacre has been established in
court and further steps have been made to unveil the cover-ups
and those who ordered the attack in order to comply with the
Republic's duty to seek the complete truth".
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