Ex-Red Brigades member Anna Laura Braghetti dies

Anna Laura Braghetti, a former member of Italy’s far-left terrorist group the Red Brigades (BR), has died aged 72, her family announced on Thursday.

Braghetti played a key role in the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former premier Aldo Moro, one of the darkest chapters in Italy’s postwar history. Her name appeared on the rental contract for the Rome apartment where Moro, then president of the Christian Democracy (DC) party, was held captive for 54 days.

Posing as the wife of another BR member, Braghetti provided cover for the safe house where Moro was imprisoned before being killed in May 1978. The abduction began with a violent ambush in which five of Moro’s bodyguards were shot dead.

Sentenced to life imprisonment

After Moro’s murder, Braghetti continued to be involved in violent BR operations, including the 1980 killing of magistrate Vittorio Bachelet. She was arrested later that year and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Released from prison in 2002, Braghetti co-authored Il Prigioniero, a memoir recounting the Moro kidnapping. The book inspired Marco Bellocchio’s 2003 film Good Morning, Night.

Valter Biscotti, lawyer for the families of Moro’s slain bodyguards, said Braghetti remained a central figure in the history of the Red Brigades. “She participated in the murder of Vittorio Bachelet and played a key role in the kidnapping of Aldo Moro,” Biscotti said. “Braghetti was not a Red Cross nurse, as she might appear in Bellocchio’s film. She was one of the three people who heard Moro’s voice inside the so-called ‘People’s Prison’.”

He added that while Anna Laura Braghetti later reflected on her actions, “I don’t think of repentance, and she remains a leading player in one of the most brutal criminal episodes in the history of the Red Brigades.”