Two neo-Fascist extremists have been sentenced to life in prison for a deadly terrorist attack 43 years ago, bringing to an end to one of the most complicated legal cases linked to more than two decades of right- and left-wing terrorist attacks in Italy.
The life sentences of Carlo Maria Maggi, 82, and Maurizio Tramonte, 54, were confirmed by Italy's top appeals body, the Court of Cassation, late Tuesday.
The two men had been tried in connection with the planting of a bomb during a trade union anti-Fascist rally on May 28, 1974, in the northern city of Brescia, about 100 kilometres east of Milan.
The bombing at Brescia's Piazza della Loggia, which left eight dead and about 100 injured, occurred during Italy's so-called Years of Lead between the late 1960s and the late 1980s.
During that period, some 455 people were killed and 4,529 injured in more than 5,000 politically-motivated incidents, according to one victims' group.
Maggi's old age and frail health left it unclear whether both men would end up in prison.
"It's not about seeing them behind bars, what matters is that justice has been done," the president of the relatives' association of Piazza della Loggia victims, Manlio Milani, told dpa.
Milani, who lost his wife in the attack, thanked judges, police and lawyers for persevering with the case.
There have been more than a dozen trials on the Brescia bombing. The first ended in 1979 with guilty rulings against other suspects that were quashed on appeal three years later. The main suspect in the original trial was killed in prison before the appeal, by other neo-Fascists.
