Stefano Delle Chiaie

Italian far right activist

Stefano Delle Chiaie (13 September 1936, Caserta – 10 September 2019, Rome) was an Italian neo fascist terrorist. He was the founder of Avanguardia Nazionale, a member of Ordine Nuovo, and founder of Lega nazionalpopolare. He went on to become a wanted man worldwide, suspected of involvement in Italy's strategy of tension, but was acquitted. He was a friend of Licio Gelli, grandmaster of P2 masonic lodge. He was suspected of involvement in South America's Operation Condor, but was acquitted. He was known by his nickname "il caccola" (Roman slang for "shorty") as he was just over five feet tall although he stated that originally, the nickname came from his very young involvement, at age 14, in the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo fascist political party established after the war

Delle Chiaie began as member of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo fascist party. However he rejected the participation of the MSI in elections, preferring to take the battle to the streets. He left the MSI in 1958. After participating to the foundation of the Centri Studi Ordine Nuovo with members of the MSI, he created the small Gruppi di Azione Rivoluzionari (GAR) at the end of the 1950s. Involved in various political actions, such as protesting against Eisenhower's visit to Italy or fighting against Italian Communist Party members, he already maintained close international links, notably with the Austrian Konrad Windisch, leader of the neo Nazi Kameradschaftsring Nationaler Jugendverbände (KNJ). Delle Chiaie soon became a close ally of Junio Valerio Borghese and was suspected with him in the Golpe Borghese, but was acquitted because at the time he was in Barcelona. Delle Chiaie was arrested in Caracas, Venezuela on 27 March 1987 and extradited to Italy to stand trial for his role in the Strage di Piazza Fontana bombing of Milan on 12 December 1969, when 17 people were killed and 88 wounded. Delle Chiaie was acquitted by the Assize Court in Catanzaro in 1989, along with fellow accused Massimiliano Fachini. On 20 February 1989 he was declared not guilty. On 5 July 1991 on appeal was acquitted for the case and for participation to subversive association. He was also charged with subversive association in relationship to the 1980 Bologna railway station bombing, but was acquitted on appeals.

In October 1991 he founded Lega Nazionalpopolare. The movement had limited success at the national parliamentary election 1992 in Italy.

Delle Chiaie started a neo fascist transnational magazine entitled Confidentiel in Paris, France, in 1979. The magazine was also published in Italy, Spain and France and folded in 1981. His international activities started early. He first took part in Yves Guérin Sérac's "Aginter Press", founded in Salazar's Portugal in 1965. After assisting Borghese during his 1970 attempted coup in Italy, he escaped to Franquist Spain — as would Vincenzo Vinciguerra — and met with future members of the GAL paramilitary group. He was then present at the Ezeiza massacre in Argentina on 20 June 1973, and then met with US born DINA agent Michael Townley in 1975 to prepare Chilean Christian Democrat Bernardo Leighton's failed assassination. In 1976, he participated in the Montejurra Incidents against left wing Carlists in Spain, before leaving for Latin America. In South America, he took part in the 'Cocaine Coup' of Luis García Meza Tejada, when a notoriously corrupt military regime forced its way to power in Bolivia in 1980, with assistance from the Argentine SIDE which had been called on for 70 foreign agents. He later worked for the new government in training its soldiers. Delle Chiaie later declared in a 1983 interview to a Spanish reporter:

I was decided to give my hand to the creation of an international revolutionary movement Therefore, when the opportunity of a national revolution appeared in Bolivia, we were there to shoulder our comrades. We were neither repressors nor narco terrorists, but political militants. Judge Baltazar Garzón's investigations demonstrated that he had worked both for Pinochet's political police, the DINA, for the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A) and for Hugo Banzer's dictatorship in Bolivia. During a 1997 hearing before the Commission on terrorism headed by senator Giovanni Pellegrino, Stefano Delle Chiaie went on speaking about a "black fascist International" and his hopes of creating the conditions of an "international revolution." He talked about the World Anticommunist League, but said that after attending a meeting in Paraguay, he left it. He claimed that the latter was a front for the CIA. While Townley insisted that DINA head Manuel Contreras gave him the order to carry out the assassination attempt, Vinciguerra alleged that Dell Chiaie gave him information that Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet directly ordered it. Delle Chiaie, along with fellow neo fascist Vincenzo Vinciguerra, also testified in Rome in December 1995 before judge María Servini de Cubría that Enrique Arancibia Clavel (a former Chilean secret police agent prosecuted for crimes against humanity in 2004) and Michael Townley were directly involved in the Carlos Prats assassination. Michael Townley has claimed that DINA agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, convicted in Argentina for the 1974 assassination of General Carlos Prats, had traveled to California in the autumn of 1977 on banking business for ALFA, alias Stefano Delle Chiaie.