Two Italian anarchists were killed in an explosion in a cabin on the outskirts of Rome, apparently while making a bomb, media reported Saturday.
The couple, named as Sara Ardizzone and Alessandro Mercogliano, died on Friday while preparing for a protest aimed at drawing attention to the fate of imprisoned anarchist figure Alfredo Cospito, Italian media reported.
The couple were known to the police for their activism in the anarchist movement.
Cospito, 58, is serving a 20-year sentence for a series of package bombings and attacks targeting authorities.
He is being held in highly restrictive prison conditions applied to terrorists and mafia members, which some human rights groups have condemned as too harsh.
Cospito staged a hunger strike three years ago in protest against the measures, known as ’41-bis’ after an article in Italy’s prison code.
A court will decide in May whether to ease his detention conditions, and the press suggested that Ardizzone and Mercogliano may have been preparing a bombshell to draw public attention to his case.
La Repubblica newspaper reported that they had prepared an attack, which it said was not aimed at killing people, but “an act of protest”.
Ardizzone had told a court during a 2025 trial that she and Mercogliano were “partners in life and in war,” according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
She defended the violent protest in her testimony, telling the court: “There is a big difference between the violence of the oppressed and that of the oppressors: the former follows a code of ethics, the latter none.”
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