From Gruppo anarchico Mikhail Bakunin (Facebook link)
May 26, 2023
It is with great sorrow that we announce the death tonight in London, at the end of a long illness, of our comrade Enrico Di Cola.
Enrico had become well known after the Piazza Fontana massacre because he was the only one of the March 22 group who escaped the arrest of the anarchists (Pietro Valpreda, Roberto Gargamelli, Emilio Borghese, Emilio Bagnoli and Roberto Mander) accused of the state massacre.
After an adventures as a fugitive in Italy he decided, with comrades from the Bakunin Group in Rome, to establish himself in Sweden and request political asylum. To request extradition, Italy would have to explain the reasons for the arrest warrants, and the comrades hoped to have that massacre trial in Sweden that the Italian state did not want to have.
Enrico thus ended up being, in a world divided into blocs, the only Westerner to be granted political asylum in another Western country. In addition to political asylum, they granted him a Nansen passport, issued by the United Nations, because he had become stateless.
After being granted political asylum, he continued to fight for the liberation of his comrades and, once the responsibility of fascists and intelligence services in the massacre was exposed, he continued to support jailed comrades around the world by founding the Anarchist Black Cross in Sweden.
He helped establish the Swedish Anarchist Federation, was on the international committee of SAC, the Swedish libertarian trade union, and also played an important role as a liaison between the Scandinavian countries and the International of Anarchist Federations.
He moved to London and continued to be active in the anarchist movement. Realizing the attempts to revive the slanders against anarchists, he started the association ""Pietro Valpreda - Gli anarchici per la verità sulle stragi [Anarchists for the truth about the massacres]" and the blog strage di stato (https://stragedistato.wordpress.com/).
He was a very valued militant in our group and we were enriched by his experience and advice.
We realize that telling his story does not fully render the sympathy, tenacity, and cheerfulness of Enrico.
There will be time to tell them; today is a time for tears.
Ciao Henry
Gruppo Anarchico Bakunin - Roma e Lazio
5/26/2023
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