1.
GV PAN FROM: traffic in Rome street, Via Foa, to printers
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2.
CU PAN FROM: No 31 on wall to locked shutters on printing shop
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3.
GV: printers and street scene.
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4.
GV: block of flats in Rome ZOOM balcony on flat (2 shots)
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CU: name plate by door of Gabriella Mariani's flat PAN TO door. (2 shots)
0.53

6.
GV: another block of flats in Via Agnone Del Sannio (2 shots)
1.01

7.
SV: window in flat where owner of printing press was arrested. (3 shots)
1.12

8.
GV: police headquarters, Rome.
1.18

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SV INTERIOR PAN: from newsmen at press conference TO police chief Emmanuela De Francesco speaking to newsmen in Italian.
1.49


There are three Red Brigades cells in Rome, the Southern cell, which the present police operation is believed to have neutralised, a cell within Rome university and a cell within Rome's telephone company. The other main bases of the Red Brigades are in Genoa, Milan and Turin. The new discoveries bring the number of known operational bases in Rome to three. Another was discovered during Signor Moro's captivity, but the occupants had fled.




Initials RH/1850



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: In Italy, police hunting the Red Brigade killers of former premier Aldo Moro have made what could be their first major breakthrough. Five people suspected of Brigade involvement are being held in Rome and two hideouts have also been discovered. Among those arrested were two women and the owner of a printing press which, police believe, may have been used to produce communiques during the kidnap.

SYNOPSIS: This print shop in the Via Foa near the Janiculum Hill in Central Rome was used, police believe, to produce the messages issued by the Red Brigades after the bloody kidnap of Aldo Moro in March and before his murder on May the ninth. Tests are now underway on the printing equipment to ascertain definitely whether or not it was used by the Brigades.

It was at this block of flats in the suburb of Aurelio that one female suspect, social worker Gabriella Mariani, was arrested. Miss Mariani purchased the flat recently, for cash, and lived there with a bearded man known locally as "the professor". He has vanished. Diaries with important addresses were found at the flat which was, believe police, a base for the Brigades in south Rome.

So far, steps have been taken to charge only one of those arrested, the printing press owner 25-year-old Enrico Triaca, found at his parent's suburban Roman flat. Triaca has been formally put under investigation for the Moro kidnapping, multiple murders and other Brigade attacks.

The suspects all in their mid-twenties, are now being interrogated to discover if they were directly involved in the Moro kidnapping. Rome police chief Emmanuele de Francesco told reporters some of those arrested are thought to supporters rather than members of the Brigades, but police consider the latest developments very important. All those held will go on identity parades before witnesses to the kidnapping. Observers believe these arrests mean police have neutralised one of the Red Brigades' three Rome cells.