Bombsiler convicted after 50 years

The 1974 bomb layer in Brescia lives in Graubünden and has just been sentenced to 30 years of prison. The then underage perpetrator is naturalized in Switzerland. Council of States Carlo Sommaruga requires the withdrawal of the right -wing terrorist’s civil rights.

He wore the nickname « tomatoes ». Because he was shy and his cheeks quickly red when he was embarrassed. But the young man from Verona named Marco Toffaloni was by no means timid when it came to committed a terrorist act. Five days before his 17th birthday, on May 28, 1974, together with an accomplice, he hid a explosive device in a trash on the central Piazza della loggia in Brescia.

At 10:12 a.m., the bomb exploded against neo -fascist terror during a major rally. Eight people died on the spot, more than 100 people were injured.

The public was in shock in view of the bloodbath. It was the leading years in Italy when attacks shook the country by rights and leftists. Toffaloni himself was a militant member of the Neo -Fascist Organization Ordine Nuovo (new order), who maintained its headquarters in Verona. A photo of at that time shows that he was in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene.

At the end of last week, Toffaloni was sentenced to 30 years in prison by the youth court in Brescia, in accordance with the application of the public prosecutor, who had requested this maximum penalty. The court was convinced that it was one of two perpetrators who had physically deposited the bomb. The youth court was responsible because Toffaloni was a minor at the time of the crime.

Judgment against a 67-year-old youth offender

The fact that such a judgment is only spoken fifty years after the act of terrorism is part of Italian normality. The processing of the attack at that time lasts decades and continues to this day. Much remains in mysterious. In the case of Brescia’s attack, the masterminds have already been convicted, but the trial against the actual bombing residents only took place from May 2024.

The 67-year-old Toffaloni himself was neither present during the trial nor in the judgment. He has been living in Switzerland since the mid-1980s. He had met a Graubünden in his political environment, moved to Switzerland and had accepted her name after being naturalized and also kept after divorce.

The name change was probably part of a plan not to be recognized and undermined. But he was not very successful. A research team from the Italian-speaking broadcaster RSI recently spotted him in front of a Landquart GR supermarket. He lives in this Graubünden community. But the man piled up over his head when he was confronted with a question of the television journalist.

Switzerland is locked up against delivery

The youth prosecutor’s office Brescia applied for a compulsive accompaniment to the process last year. However, this was not granted by the Federal Office of Justice (BJ), « since there is no corresponding legal basis in Swiss legislation », as the BJ records on request.

The same applies to delivery to Italy that will not take place. « Swiss citizens must not be delivered to another state, unless they agree in writing, » it says. It would be possible to apply for prison enforcement by Italy to Swiss authorities, but has not yet been received in this case.