L'Affaire Sofri
Jean-Louis Comolli
2001 - 55 min - France

In 1988 a witness suddenly appeared claiming that three leaders of the Italian leftist Lotta Continua group, including Adriano Sofri, had been responsible for the murder in 1972 of a Milan police inspector. The inspector had been accused by the left of responsibility or complicity in the death of the anarchist, Giuseppe Pinelli, who “jumped” from a window in police headquarters to his death in 1969.
The film essentially records a monologue by left academic Carlo Ginzburg, who has scrupulously exposed the case against Sofri. A court in Venice upheld the former left-wing leader’s sentence of 22 years in prison in October 2000. Ginzburg, who knew Sofri, declares, “I was convinced of his innocence.” He explains that the prosecution of the former Lotta Continua leaders was a witch-hunt, a vendetta originating at the highest levels of the Italian state. He compares the conduct of the “repentant” witness, Leonardo Marino, a former Lotta Continua member, to the reactions of prisoners and witnesses during the Inquisition.