Oristano today remembered Umberto Erriu, the carabiniere killed by the Uno bianca gang. On the 36th anniversary of his death, in the gardens of Via Messina, named after the young soldier who fell in service, the Provincial Command Corps paid homage to Erriu, awarded the Gold Medal for Civil Valor and the Gold Medal of Victim of Terrorism "to Memory".

The ceremony was attended by the military and civil authorities and Umberto's mother, Mrs. Maria Vitalia Cabiddu, his sister Maddalena and his brother Salvatorangelo.

Umberto Erriu was born in Oristano on 21 January 1964, son of a Carabiniere (his father was an Appuntato and an uncle was a soldier in the Army who fell in the Second World War). He was an excellent student and a great middle-distance runner in Oristano athletics. Having joined the force in 1984, he served at the Carabinieri Sports Center in Bologna, as a national level athlete, the 2nd Liguria battalion in Genoa and in the Carabinieri station of Castel Maggiore (Bologna).

On 20 April 1988 Umberto Erriu and his colleague Cataldo Stasi were killed while they were in a car park in Castel Maggiore, near Bologna, after stopping the car with 3 members of the gang on board for a check.

During a patrol in via Gramsci around 10.15pm they noticed three suspicious men inside a parked white Uno. Once they got off the Alfetta, they were massacred. A merciless execution, Erriu and Stasi returned fire despite being seriously wounded.

They died under those blows and today the Carabinieri of Oristano wanted to remember that young colleague, who died a hero.

(Unioneonline)

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