The Red Brigades Kidnap and Murder Aldo Moro
Left-wing terrorism reaches its bloodiest point of Italy's Years of Lead with the killing of a former prime minister
Quick facts
- Kidnapping
- March 16, 1978, Rome
- Days held
- 54
- Murdered
- May 9, 1978
- Group responsible
- Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse)
What happened
Beginning around 1970 and continuing for more than a decade, the Marxist militant group the Red Brigades and other smaller factions carried out kidnappings, bombings, and assassinations across Italy in a period later known as the Years of Lead, at their peak boasting up to a thousand members funded by ransom money, robberies, and weapons dealing. On March 16, 1978, Red Brigades gunmen ambushed the car of Aldo Moro, former prime minister and president of the Christian Democracy party, in a shootout that killed his five bodyguards, and kidnapped Moro himself. He was held for 54 days while the Red Brigades demanded the release of jailed members in exchange for his life; the Italian government refused to negotiate. On May 9, 1978, Moro's body was found shot multiple times in the back of a car parked in central Rome.
Why it matters
Moro had been the chief architect of a proposed "historic compromise" bringing the Italian Communist Party into a closer working relationship with his own Christian Democrats, and his killing eliminated the politician most identified with that project. Public revulsion at Moro's murder turned Italian opinion decisively against the Red Brigades and accelerated the group's decline over the following decade, even as the broader Years of Lead violence continued into the early 1980s.
How we know
Moro's kidnapping and murder are documented in extensive contemporary Italian police, judicial, and press records from 1978, corroborated by independent historical accounts of the Years of Lead describing the same 54-day period of captivity and its outcome.
Sources
- History.com, A&E Television Networks. Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro Is Found Dead · Reputable sourcehistory.com · The domain "history.com" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. "Years of Lead" - Domestic Terrorism and Italy's Red Brigades · General sourceadst.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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