Terrorism, Azzolini: "Mara Cagol raised her arms and shouted ‘don’t shoot’"

Milan, March 11 (LaPresse) – "The confusion was absolute, we knew that the carabinieri were waiting for us outside […] We gathered papers and bags, disoriented, trying to figure out how to get out of there." This is part of the statement given by former Red Brigades member Lauro Azzolini to the judges of the Court of Assizes in Alessandria, regarding the 1975 Spiotta farmhouse case, when Carabinieri officer Giovanni D'Alfonso and Mara Cagol, a member of the Red Brigades and partner of Renato Curcio, were killed in a shooting. Azzolini reconstructs the events, saying "everything went downhill, we heard gunshots aimed at us, we returned fire in the chaos of a fraction of a second," and adds, "the last image I have of Mara, which I will never forget, is of her still alive, who had surrendered with both arms raised, unarmed, and was shouting not to shoot." In his written testimony, Azzolini stated: "I was there that day, 50 years ago at Spiotta. In that brief moment 50 years ago, when everything collapsed, a hell that still costs me a tremendous effort to relive, at the end of which two people who should not have died, died."