Red Brigades Re-Emerge, Killing Italian Labor Union Economist

The nearly dormant Red Brigades terrorist organization re-emerged Wednesday and claimed responsibility for the assassination of a labor union economist.

The police said that two young men opened fire on the economist, Ezio Tarantelli, with machine guns Wednesday morning as he sat in his car in a Rome University parking lot.

A Red Brigades leaflet was found next to the car, and an anonymous caller later told a Milan radio station, “We are the Red Brigades; we claim the attack.”

Tarantelli, an economics professor at the university, was president of the Research Institute of the Italian Confederation of Labor Unions, which is controlled by the dominant Christian Democrat Party.

Reactivated Cells

The leftist terrorist organization has been relatively quiet since hundreds of its members were arrested after the rescue of abducted U.S. Army Brig. Gen. James L. Dozier in January, 1982. But anti-terrorist police have long expressed fear that some of its cells, including at least one in Rome, were being reactivated.

The last killing for which the terrorists claimed responsibility was that of Leamon Hunt, the American director of the Sinai peacekeeping force, in Rome a little more than a year ago. Wednesday’s killing was carried out in a way similar to Hunt’s, with gunmen firing through a car window.

Police said that after killing Tarantelli, the two terrorists jumped onto a motorbike and disappeared in traffic. Students who took the victim to a hospital said he was dead on arrival from head wounds.

The 43-year-old economist achieved prominence last year when, as a member of a government commission, he played a key role in drawing plans to cut back on Italy’s program of wage increases linked to the cost of living. The extreme left opposed the plan, which helped to reduce the rate of inflation when it went into effect last spring.