ROME, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Italian leaders on Friday commemorated the 40th anniversary of the kidnapping of slain statesman Aldo Moro and the murder of five members of his security detail by the Red Brigades, an extreme-left terrorist group.
Moro was murdered after 55 days in captivity during which the terrorists tried to negotiate a prisoner exchange. His body was left in the trunk of a parked car in central Rome.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella laid a wreath and uncovered a plaque in Rome's Via Fani, where the bloody ambush in which Moro was captured took place on March 16, 1978.
"One morning 40 years ago, the most serious attack on our Republic (took place). Italy renders tribute to a great political leader," outgoing Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni wrote on Twitter, naming the five members of Moro's security detail who perished in the line of duty.
A former prime minister, law professor, and member of the 1947 Assembly that wrote Italy's first democratic Constitution in the aftermath of World War II, Moro was a senior member of the centrist Christian Democratic Party.
He promoted dialogue with the Italian Communist Party, which like the Christian Democratic Party dominated Italian politics for decades after World War II.
