On October 6, 1975, former Chilean minister and Christian Democratic leader Bernardo Leighton and his wife Ana Fresno were victims of an assassination attempt in Rome. Pier Luigi Concutelli, military chief of the neo-fascist organization Ordine Nuovo, shot them at point-blank range. Although they survived, Leighton suffered lasting injuries for years, and Fresno was left confined to a wheelchair. In 1995, Judge Giovanni Salvi proved that the operation had been ordered by Chilean General Manuel Contreras, head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), and had followed a hierarchical structure involving Brigadier Raúl Iturriaga, U.S. agent Michael Townley, international neo-fascist leader Stefano Delle Chiaie, and finally, Concutelli. The judge also discovered that the attack was part of Operation Condor and that DINA had organized it in collaboration with the Spanish secret service. In fact, at that time, Delle Chiaie and Concutelli had their base of operations in Madrid and worked for the Intelligence services, committing, among other covert operations, attacks against ETA members in the Basque Country and in southern France under the umbrella of Antiterrorism ETA or Basque Spanish Battalion.
Michael Townley, who murdered General Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires, and Letelier in Washington, lives in the U.S. under the protection of the Federal Witness Protection Program.
Michael Townley had already assassinated General Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, in Buenos Aires the previous year. And in 1976, he would assassinate Orlando Letelier and the American left-wing activist Ronnie Moffitt in Washington. Prats and Letelier had served as ministers in the Popular Unity governments led by Salvador Allende. Their assassin has lived for years in the United States under the protection of the Federal Witness Protection Program. The terrorist himself explained to Chilean television in 1993 that the objective of the attack against Leighton was to prevent her from using her influence within the Italian Christian Democrats to promote the agreement known as the compromisso storico with the Italian Communist Party. This pact would later cost the president of the Italian Christian Democrats, Aldo Moro, his life.
Italy posed a major problem for the US. In 1971, The Washington Post predicted the imminent rise to power of the Italian Communist Party within three or four years, likening it to the “Chilean communists allied with Allende.” The PCI achieved its all-time high in the 1976 parliamentary elections, winning 227 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 116 in the Senate. A year later, a Harvard University report was published asserting that if the communists entered the government, NATO would cease to exist. The US’s anti-communist obsession lies at the root of the Years of Lead and the strategy of tension.
The same neo-fascist who shot Leighton would assassinate Judge Vittorio Occorsio nine months later, also in Rome, with a weapon belonging to the Spanish intelligence services (July 2026 will mark the 50th anniversary of his murder). Occorsio had previously tried and convicted dozens of neo-fascists, whose main leaders were based in Spain, and the magistrate had uncovered crucial information about the relationship between the Mafia, the far right, and the intelligence services, including the Spanish ones. Another Italian judge, Guido Salvini, one of the leading experts on far-right conspiracy theories, concluded after years of investigation that the Ordine Nuovo organization was actually a recruitment center for NATO’s parallel structures, tasked with carrying out terrorist acts as part of a strategy of escalating tensions.
On October 15, 2025, the Vittorio Occorsio Foundation held a memorial service in Rome for Bernardo Leighton and his wife, on the anniversary of the attack, with a special invitation extended to Gabriel Boric. The Chilean president used his speech to compare Daniel Ortega to Pinochet; denounce the alleged theft of children in Ukraine by Russia; and accuse Nicolás Maduro of being a dictator, of having stolen the elections, and of having ordered the assassination of a former Venezuelan military officer in Chile. All of this despite knowing the real threat of a possible armed intervention by imperialism in Venezuela. However, Boric made not the slightest mention of the United States, even though, as has been seen, there were more than enough reasons to do so. Because the same empire behind the attack on Leighton and the deaths of Allende, Prats, Letelier, and Occorsio is the one that today threatens Venezuela and its president, Nicolás Maduro. The same one who has used and continues to use the extreme right to carry out coups, terrorist attacks and provoke wars around the world for his own purposes.
READ MORE: https://rebelion.org/bernardo-leighton-venezuela-y-otras-victimas-del-imperialismo/
