Renato Curcio

Renato Curcio

Renato Curcio (Monterotondo, Italy, September 23, 1941), was the founder and leader of the Red Brigades. The son of a middle-class family, when he entered the Faculty of Sociology of Trento he began his contacts with groups of the extreme left. Later, he organized a movement in this same faculty which was to serve as a revolutionary vanguard of a Marxist nature. In 1970, he began his contacts with the working environment of Milan. This is the time when the operations of the Red Brigades begin, which ended up becoming the most active group of its kind in the 1970s. In 1974 Curcio was arrested along with Alberto Franceschini. A year later he managed to escape from the Casale Moferrato prison, thanks to a commando action by his group. Two years later he was arrested again. This time, the Red Brigades kidnapped Prime Minister Aldo Moro to demand the release of Curcio and other prisoners; Given the government's refusal, Aldo Moro ended up being assassinated. In 1978 he was tried and convicted of the crime of "insurrection against the State". In 1993 he obtained the third degree.