Stefano Delle Chiaie

Stefano Delle Chiaie (born 13 September 1936 in Caserta) is a neofascist Italian activist (founder of "Avanguardia Nazionale" and member of "Ordine Nuovo") who went on to become a wanted man worldwide, involved both in Italy's strategy of tension and South America's Operation Condor. He was a friend of Licio Gelli, headmaster of P2 masonic lodge.

Stefano Delle Chiaie took part in Yves Guérin-Sérac's "Aginter Press" founded in Salazar's Portugal in 1965. He also helped Borghese during his 1970 attempted coup in Italy, before escaping to Franquist Spain — as would Vincenzo Vinciguerra — and met with future members of the GAL death squad. He was then present at the June 20, 1973 Ezeiza massacre in Argentina, cite news | title=Las Relaciones secretas entre Pinochet, Franco y la P2 - Conspiración para matar | publisher=Nizkor Project | date=February 4, 1999|url=http://www.derechos.org/sorin/doc/p2.html ] and then met with DINA US agent Michael Townley in 1975 to prepare Chilean Christian Democrat Bernardo Leighton's (failed) assassination. In 1976, he participated in the Montejurra terrorist incident against left-wing Carlists in Spain, and then lent a hand in Luis García Meza Tejada's "cocaine coup" in Bolivia (1980), along with former Nazi Klaus Barbie. Judge Baltazar Garzón's investigations demonstrated that he had worked both for Pinochet's DINA, for the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A) and for Hugo Banzer's dictatorship in Bolivia . He was finally arrested in 1989 in Caracas, Venezuela, after he managed to flee Bolivia right after Hernán Siles Zuazo assumed office there in October 1982. [cite news | title = Key terror suspect flown back to Italy | publisher = Financial Times | date = 1982-10-13] He is known by his nickname "caccola" (shorty) as he is five feet tall; the name is not particularly flattering as "caccola", in Italian, also means "booger", and is very similar to "cacca", "poo".

Founder of "Avanguardia Nazionale" in 1960

Delle Chiaie began as member of the Italian Social Movement (MSI, the neo-Fascist party). However he rejected the participation of the MSI in elections, preferring to take the battle to the streets, and so he left the party in 1960 to form the National Vanguard ("Avanguardia Nazionale") as a street-fighting battalion. Around this time, he also became a member of the secret P2 Masonic Lodge.

Delle Chiaie soon became a close ally of Junio Valerio Borghese and was involved with him in the "Golpe Borghese", an abortive coup attempt in Rome in 1970, after which he fled to Spain. Here he continued to organise "Avanguardia Nazionale", as well as becoming an ally of veteran Belgian fascist Léon Degrelle. Delle Chiaie has since spent most of his time working in Latin America, and was described by the CIA as being the most wanted rightist terrorist in 1983. In the course of his activities Delle Chiaie was also known by a number of aliases, the most notable of which were ALFA and Alfredo Di Stéfano, after the celebrated footballer of the same name.

Years of lead

Delle Chiaie was arrested in Caracas, Venezuela in 1989 and extradited to Italy to stand trial for his role in the "Strage di Piazza Fontana" bombing of Milan on December 12 1969. Delle Chiaie was acquitted by the Assize Court in Catanzaro in 1989, along with fellow accused Massimiliano Fachini. [cite news | title = Two Acquitted of Organizing Terror Attack | publisher = Associated Press | date = 1989-02-21] . As of yet, no convictions have been made for the attack.

He was also charged with subversive association in relationship to the 1980 Bologna railway station bombing, but was acquitted on appeals. [cite news | title = Four Convicted Of Mass Murder In Italian Bombing That Killed 85 | publisher = Associated Press | date = 1988-07-11]

According to "Le Monde diplomatique", Delle Chiaie met with Abdullah Çatlı in Latin America and during a visit of the Turkish "Grey Wolves" member in Miami in September 1982. Abdullah Çatlı "is reckoned to have been one of the main perpetrators of underground operations carried out by the Turkish branch of the Gladio organisation and had played a key role in the bloody events of the period 1976-80 which paved the way for the military coup d’état of September 1980" [ [http://mondediplo.com/1998/07/05turkey Turkey’s pivotal role in the international drug trade] , "Le Monde diplomatique", July 1998 en icon/fr icon ] .

Involvement in Operation Condor

Having become close to Augusto Pinochet, he left Spain in 1974 to resettle in Chile, where he worked not only for the government, but also in training both government and rightist rebel troops in Argentina and El Salvador, participating in the "Dirty War" and Operation Condor assassination campaign.

With Klaus Barbie, a former Nazi, he took part in the 'Cocaine Coup' of Luis García Meza Tejada, when a notoriously corrupt military regime forced its way to power in Bolivia in 1980, with assistance from the Argentine SIDE which had called for on 70 foreign agents. He later worked for the new government in training its soldiers. Stefano Delle Chiaie later declared in a 1983 interview to a Spanish reporter:

"I was decided to give my hand to the creation of an international revolutionary movement... Therefore, when the opportunity of a national revolution appeared in Bolivia, we were there to shoulder our comrades. We were neither repressors nor narco-terrorists, but political militants." [http://www.parlamento.it/bicam/terror/stenografici/steno26.htm Hearing] of Stefano Delle Chiaie on 22 July 1997 before the Italian Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism headed by senator Giovanni Pellegrino ]

During a 1997 hearing before the Commission on terrorism headed by senator Giovanni Pellegrino, Stefano Delle Chiaie went on speaking about a "black fascist International" and his hopes of creating the conditions of an "international revolution." He talked about the World Anticommunist League, but said that after attending a meeting in Paraguay, he left it. He claimed that the latter was a front for the CIA . He only admitted having taken part in the New European Order (NOE) organization, and denied having worked with the International Anticommunist Alliance around 1974.

Delle Chiaie met in Madrid with Pinochet during Franco's funeral in 1975, beginning his involvement with the Chilean regime and his part in Operation Condor. According to lawyer Alun Jones, representant of the Spanish justice during Spain's request to Great Britain for the extradition of Augusto Pinochet, Pinochet met with Delle Chiaie in Madrid to plan an attack against Carlos Altamirano, the leader of the Chilean Socialist Party. The plan either failed because of Altamirano's awareness and personal caution, or because some intelligence agency — it is not known from which country — may have made him aware of the threats on his personal life.

According to CIA documents, in Madrid, Stefano Delle Chiaie also met with Michael Townley, a DINA agent, and Virgilio Paz Romero, a Cuban based in Miami, with connections in Chile, to prepare, with the help of Franco's secret police, the murder of Bernardo Leighton, a Chilean Christian Democrat. On October 6 1975 Leighton and his wife were severely injured by gunshots while in exile in Rome [http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8.htm] .

It has been claimed that Delle Chiaie was involved in the murder of General Carlos Prats in Buenos Aires on September 30 1974 [http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2000/05/22/mun6.html Arancibia, "clave" en la cooperación de las dictaduras] , "La Jornada", May 22, 2000 es icon ] . Delle Chiaie, along with fellow extremist Vincenzo Vinciguerra, also testified in Rome in December 1995 before judge Servini de Cubria that Enrique Arancibia Clavel (a former Chilean secret police agent prosecuted for crimes against humanity in 2004 [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3596316.stm Vital rights ruling in Argentina] , "BBC", August 24, 2004 en icon ] ) and Michael Townley (a United States-born secret police officer) were directly involved in this assassination [http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2000/05/22/mun6.html Arancibia, "clave" en la cooperación de las dictaduras] , "La Jornada", May 22, 2000 es icon ] .

Michael Townley has claimed that DINA agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, convicted in Argentina for the 1974 assassination of General Carlos Prats, had traveled to California in Fall of 1977 on banking business for ALFA, alias Stefano Delle Chiaie [http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/ch02-06.htm Declassified documents, 2, 6] published by the National Security Archive ] .

References

Further reading

* Stuart Christie, "Stefano Delle Chiaie: Portrait of a Black Terrorist", 1984

External links

* [http://www.rifondazione-cinecitta.org/dellechiaie.html "I segreti del “er caccola” Stefano Delle Chiaie", Andrea Barbato, July 24, 1988]