Felice Casson
Felice Casson is the Venetian magistrate who reopened the Peteano bombing case in 1984, obtained access to SISMI archives, and in 1990 discovered the documents that forced Prime Minister Andreotti's parliamentary disclosure of Operation Gladio.
Felice Casson was born on August 5, 1953, in Chioggia. He served as an investigating magistrate (giudice istruttore) in Venice and is best known for his role in uncovering the Operation Gladio stay-behind network. His investigation into the Peteano bombing directly triggered the chain of events that forced Giulio Andreotti's disclosure of Gladio to the Italian parliament in October 1990. He later served as a member of the Italian Senate (2006-2018) for the Democratic Party and its successor formations.1
The Peteano Reinvestigation
Casson reopened the Peteano case in 1984, years after Vincenzo Vinciguerra's confession had implicated elements of SID and the stay-behind network. Working from the discrepancy between the original forensic report's identification of the explosive and Vinciguerra's testimony that the bomb had used military-grade C4 from Gladio weapons caches, Casson obtained authorization to examine records held by SISMI, the Italian military intelligence service.
The investigation established that SID officials had knowingly falsified the original forensic evidence, misidentifying the C4 explosive in order to prevent investigators from tracing the material to the stay-behind network's arms caches. The falsification had successfully misdirected the original investigation and allowed the network to operate without scrutiny for more than a decade after the attack.1
Discovery of the Gladio Documents
In 1990, while examining SISMI's classified archives in Rome, Casson found documents directly referencing the Gladio stay-behind network by name and describing its organizational structure and weapons depots. This was the first direct documentary evidence - outside the intelligence services themselves - of the network's existence.
Casson then requested government authorization to access further classified materials related to Gladio held in the vaults of the intelligence services. The authorization request itself forced a decision: Prime Minister Andreotti, faced with the prospect of an independent magistrate obtaining full access to the Gladio documentation, chose instead to preempt the disclosure by acknowledging the network's existence to parliament. Andreotti made his parliamentary statement on October 24, 1990, setting off an international chain of disclosures that ultimately forced the acknowledgment of stay-behind networks across fourteen Western European countries.2
Significance
Casson's investigation demonstrated what a single determined magistrate operating through legitimate legal channels could accomplish against a system designed for concealment. The Peteano case - a single bombing in a remote village - became the thread that unraveled an eighteen-year cover-up and exposed the entire NATO stay-behind infrastructure. His subsequent political career in the Senate continued his focus on intelligence oversight and accountability for the strategy of tension.1
Sources
- Ganser, Daniele. NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe. Frank Cass, 2005, Chapter 4. Willan, Philip. Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy. Constable, 1991. ↩
- Italian Senate Commissione Stragi. Final Report. Rome, 2001. Flamini, Gianni. Il Partito del Golpe. Bovolenta, 1982-1985. ↩
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