User:TradurreJT/Achille Lollo

Achille Lollo (Rome, May 8 1951 – Bracciano, August 3 2021) was an Italian criminal, activist and journalist. In the 1970s he was a militant in the extra-parliamentary left-wing group Potere Operaio ("Workers' Power") and was later condemned to 18 years in prison for arson, double manslaughter, and the use of explosives and incendiary material for the Primavalle fire, a sentence that was later voided by the Italian courts.

In the night between April 15 and 16 1973, Achille Lollo, along with Marino Clavo and Manlio Grillo, used a type of incendiary bomb to set fire to the door of Mario Mattei’s apartment. Mattei was, at the time, secretary of the Primavalle “Giarabub” branch of MSI, an Italian neo-fascist political party. The flames spread to the entire apartment on accident, according to the court verdict, and the secretary’s children Stefano, 8, and Virgilio Mattei, 22, were killed in the blaze. Lollo, Clavo, and Grillo were convicted for the fire but without the aggravating circumstance of terrorism.

The Primavalle case
The same topic in detail: Primavalle fire

The case against Achille Lollo, Marino Clavo, and Manlio Grillo began on February 24 1975. Only Achille Lollo was present and in custody for the case, while Manlio Grillo and Marino Clavo were fugitives. In the beginning, the proposed charge was causing a massacre and the prosecutor’s indictment sought a life sentence. The first trial took place in the Corte d'Assise (the beginning of which was characterized by public clashes in which the young Greek nationalist Mikis Mantakas, a member of MSI’s student group Fronte universitario d'azione nazionale, was killed) and was concluded on June 15 1975, with three acquittals due to insufficient evidence for the crimes of arson and manslaughter. The second trial resulted in the accused being sentenced to 18 years in prison for manslaughter and other crimes on December 16 1986. This sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Cassation on October 13 1987, with the judges emphasizing that the accused had no intention of killing but instead sought to “intimidate their political adversary”. Lollo spent two years in pre-trial detention while waiting for his definitive sentence, only to then flee after his conviction on appeal.

In the meantime, the extra-parliamentary left distributed a pamphlet called “Controinchiesta” (“Counterinvestigation”), in which the responsibility for the fire was attributed to an internal feud between right-wing figures. In the book from the “Collettivo Potere Operaio”, Primavalle: Incendio a porte chiuse, the editor's note sustains that: "La montatura sull'incendio di Primavalle non si presenta come il risultato di un meccanismo di provocazione premeditato a lungo e ad alto livello, tipo «strage di stato». «Primavalle» è piuttosto una trama costruita affannosamente, a «caldo» da polizia e magistratura, un modo di sfruttare un'occasione per trasformare un 'banale incidente' o un oscuro episodio - 'nato e sviluppatosi nel vermicaio della sezione fascista del quartiere' - in un'occasione di rilancio degli opposti estremismi in un momento in cui la strage del giovedì nero con l'uccisione dell'agente Marino - avvenuta a Milano 3 giorni prima - ne aveva vanificato la credibilità.

“The construction of the Primavalle fire does not appear to be resulting from machinations of a long-premeditated and high-level provocation, such as a “state massacre.” “Primavalle” instead is a breathlessly constructed plot “warmly” welcomed by police and the judiciary, a way to take advantage of the occasion and transform a “banal accident” or a murky episode – “born and developed in the rat’s nest of the neighborhood’s fascist chapter” – into an excuse to relaunch the idea of opposing extremisms right after the Black Thursday massacre’s killing of police agent Antonio Marino – just three days prior in Milan – had jeopardized their credibility.”" There were many intellectuals and newspapers who took sides defending the accused. Among the most influential daily papers to take this position were Il Messaggero, the most distributed daily paper in Rome, owned by brothers Ferdinando and Alessandro Perrone (and directed by the latter), respectively the father and uncle of Diana Perrone, the Potere Operaio militant involved in subsequent investigations and who died on May 9 2013, after a long illness. At first Diana Perrone provided an alibi to Lollo, Clavo, and Grillo, only to later, under extreme pressure from her father, retract it, stating that she was only in the company of Paolo Gaeta and not with the others. It has never been clarified whether Perrone was aware of Lollo and the other participants’ intentions.

In a letter dated April 28 1973, Franca Rame, at the time an exponent of the organization Soccorso Rosso Militante (“Militant Red Aid”), wrote to Lollo: ''I have put you in the Soccorso Rosso Militante. You will receive money from friends, and letters, so you will feel less alone.  ''

Some other influential figures of the left contributed to the innocence campaign for the three indicted men, among whom could be found Communist senator Umberto Terracini (former president of the Constituent Assembly of Italy, and one of the three signatories of the Italian Constitution), Socialist deputy Riccardo Lombardi (another former member of the Constituent Assembly and historic leader of the “separatist” wing of his party), author and activist Dario Fo (companion and later husband to the aforementioned Franca Rame), and writer Alberto Moravia.

Flight from the country and sentencing
After a stop-over in Sweden and Angola – where he married an Angolan woman – Lollo went to Brazil and lived in Rio de Janeiro from 1986 onward. He had four Brazilian children and worked as a journalist and editor of three political magazines of the Brazilian left. In January of 2005, the court of appeals in Rome rescinded his sentence and the Primavalle fire investigation was archived.

On February 2nd, 2005, Achille Lollo granted an interview in which he gave his reconstruction of events surrounding the Primavalle fire, affirming that what was meant as a demonstration had degenerated, and claiming he never threw gas into the apartment (therefore, someone else must have done it):

"Non volevamo provocare l'incendio, né uccidere. Doveva essere un'azione dimostrativa, come altre che avevamo fatto contro i fascisti a Primavalle. Ma al momento di montare l'innesco, mi si ruppe il preservativo... La Lilli, così si chiamava all'epoca la bomba artigianale, si costruiva con una tanica, un po' di benzina — due o tre litri — e i due preservativi servivano per l'acido solforico, il diserbante e lo zucchero. L'innesco doveva far esplodere i gas della benzina. Se tutto avesse funzionato, avremmo provocato un botto e annerito la porta dell'appartamento. Invece io sbaglio, l'acido mi cola tra le mani e scappiamo, lasciando la tanica inesplosa. Da quel giorno ho il dubbio su cosa sia davvero successo dopo. Non abbiamo mai pensato di far scivolare la benzina sotto la porta per dar fuoco all'appartamento. Mai. Tutte le perizie ci hanno dato ragione, tra l'altro.

“We did not want to cause a fire, nor kill. It was meant to be a demonstrative action, like others that we had taken against the fascists in Primavalle. But when setting the timer, the condom broke…La Lilli, that’s what homemade bombs were called at the time, was constructed with a jerry can, a bit of gas – two or three liters – and two condoms served to hold the sulfuric acid, herbicide, and sugar. The timer should have made the gas explode. If everything had worked, we would have caused a bang and blackened the apartment door. Instead, I made a mistake, the acid poured through my hands and we escaped, leaving the unexploded jerry can. From that day on I have had doubts about what really happened after. We had never thought to pour gas under the door to set fire to the apartment. Never. All the findings agreed with us, among other things.”"

Additionally, he reiterated that it was not his intention to kill anyone, something he had sustained ever since the sentence condemning him for involuntary manslaughter, and that he had only wished to scare Mattei by damaging the entrance to his apartment: "Noi non abbiamo incendiato la casa dei Mattei. Ci sono troppe cose strane successe quella notte. Nessuno fece scivolare la benzina sotto la porta. L'innesco non si accese. E poi loro non vennero colti nel sonno, ci stavano aspettando... Non so cosa pensare. Ma non mi sto dichiarando innocente. (…) E se mi avessero dato otto anni invece che sedici, li avrei scontati senza scappare. Avevo fiducia che le indagini ricostruissero i fatti. Invece ho dovuto farlo io, dopo 32 anni.

“We didn’t light fire to the Mattei home. Too many strange things happened that night. No one poured gasoline under the door. The timer didn’t go off. And they weren’t caught in their sleep, they were waiting for us…I don’t know what to think. But I’m not declaring myself innocent. (…) And if they had given me eight years instead of sixteen, I would have served them without escaping. I trusted that the investigation would reconstruct the facts. Instead, I had to, after 32 years.”"

Return to Italy and death
In January of 2011, Lollo returned to Italy. On January 15, he announced that he would go to an Italian public prosecutor’s office to speak with judges as an informed person with information about the facts of Primavalle. He had already previously declared that the action was carried out by six people: him, Marino Clavo, Manlio Grillo, Paolo Gaeta, Elisabetta Lecco, and Diana Perrone. He collaborated for several years with the website L’Antidiplomatico, noted for its anti-Western positions and in support of the governments of Vladimir Putin in Russia, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.

He died on August 3 2021, at the age of seventy at the hospital in Bracciano.