Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

RED GUERRILLA RESISTANCE • 579prominent individuals as well as an attempted assassination. In the firstweek of September 1989, Italian police arrested several brigadists, afterwhich BR activity appeared to cease.By 1989 about 1,300 BR members had been imprisoned. By 1994about 400 remained in jail, and by 1997 only 181 remained. On 21November 1997 Greek police in Athens arrested Enrico Bianco, oneof the BR members once thought to have been responsible for the kidnappingand killing of Aldo Moro. Although he had been cleared ofthose charges in January 1981, Italy sought his extradition on othercriminal charges. On 7 October 1998 Renato Curcio, the founder ofthe Red Brigades and the last major BR figure to remain in prison,was freed after serving 24 years of a 30-year sentence.In April 1984 the imprisoned leaders of the original BR issued acommuniqué calling on their comrades to lay down their arms, statingthat “the international conditions that made this struggle possibleno longer exist.” While most analysts believe this marked the endof the original group, there remained two factions that claimed thelegacy of the BR: the New Red Brigades-Communist CombatantParty (BR-PCC), and the Red Brigades-Union of Combatant Communists(BR-UCC). On 20 May 1999 unknown assailants in Romeshot and killed Massimo D’Antona, a senior adviser of Italy’s primeminister, Massimo D’Alema, and later responsibility for the murderwas claimed in the name of the BR-PCC. Many of the former BRmembers, including Adriana Faranda, who had served 14 years in jailfor her role in the Moro assassination, stated that they believed thecycle of armed revolutionary violence in Italy was over and doubtedthat any original BR members were involved in this attack. On 20March 2002 the BR-PCC also assassinated Professor Marco Biagi,economic adviser of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. On 23 October2003, three days after the BR-PCC attacked a business target,the last known action by the group, Italian police were able to arrestsix BR-PCC members. On 1 June 2005 four BR-PCC members weresentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Biagi.RED GUERRILLA RESISTANCE (RGR). The RGR was a nonstateU.S. anarchistic leftist group that engaged in bombings duringthe mid-1980s for the limited purpose of protesting U.S. and Israeli“imperialism,” militarism, and South African apartheid. Most of thebombings carried out in the name of this group occurred in New York