Italian anarchists claimed responsibility for a letter bomb blast on Friday that nearly blinded the director of Italy’s tax collection agency, following a foiled attack on the head of Deutsche Bank.
The package included a note signed by FAI — Federazione Anarchica Informale (“Informal Federation of Anarchy”) — the anarchists behind the letter bomb sent to the German bank chief executive, Josef Ackermann, on Wednesday.
Investigators were searching for a third bomb after German state police said the group had referred to “three explosions against banks, bankers, ticks and bloodsuckers” in a note hidden in the Deutsche package.
Italian police urged “caution in opening correspondence from unknown people or organizations.”
Equitalia Director-General Marco Cuccagna was hospitalized after he detonated the device when he opened a letter at the agency’s headquarters in Rome.
“Cuccagna has undergone an operation. He was injured to the hand and face after the explosion blew up his glass desk,” Angelo Coco from Equitalia said.
Doctors managed to save Cuccagna’s sight after removing shards of glass from both eyes and operated on three of his fingers, hospital doctors said.
Prosecutors launched an inquiry and there were media reports that both Friday’s bomb and the letter sent to Deutsche Bank had been mailed from Milan, Italy.
Equitalia, which has been accused of making mistakes with regular taxpayers, is widely unpopular in a country where tax evasion is rampant.
Equitalia Chairman Attilio Befera said: “We are all in shock, but we will continue to work even more for the good of Italy and in favor of those who pay their taxes.”
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti issued a statement expressing “solidarity” and defending the activities of Equitalia at a time his government is proposing a series of painful tax increases and pension reforms.
“Equitalia has always carried out and is continuing to carry out its duty in full respect of the law,” Monti said. “It is essential for the functioning of the state, without which it would be impossible to provide services to citizens.”
Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno accused the perpetrators of hoping to “exploit in a terroristic way the sacrifices Italy has to make to get out of the crisis.”
Pier Ferdinando Casini, head of Italy’s Union of the Center (UDC) party, said that “the risk of terrorism in a country such as ours should never be underestimated.”
The recently formed Movimento per il popolo (“Movement for the People”) against Equitalia released a statement on its Web site earlier on Friday denying responsibility for the attack and denouncing violence.
However, several anti-Equitalia groups on the Internet praised the attack, with a posting on the “Stop Equitalia” Web page saying it was a shame the letter bomb did not injure Cuccagna further, according to ANSA news agency.
The FAI has been behind a string of attacks on European institutions, including an attempted letter bombing against then--European Commission president Romano Prodi in 2003.
In April, the FAI said it was behind a letter bomb that injured two people when it exploded at the offices of the Swiss nuclear energy association.
On the same day, an Italian military officer was wounded in an army barracks by a letter bomb apparently sent by the same group.
The FAI has also claimed responsibility for a letter bomb sent to a Greek top security prison where a number of far-left extremists are incarcerated.
It was behind a bombing campaign in Rome just before Christmas one year ago that injured two people at the embassies of Switzerland and Chile and also targeted the Greek embassy, sowing panic in the Eternal City.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion