Remembrance of Horrors Past

 

The news that Brigitte Mohnhaupt, a senior (and unrepentant) member of the notorious and brutal Baader-Meinhof gang ('officially' known as the Red Army Faction), is to walk free after serving only a fraction of her five 'life' sentences for multiple murders, does not surprise me. However, it does bring back memories of the 1970s and early 1980s. Although I was a child, I still remember Baader-Meinhof's equally brutal Italian counterparts, the Brigate Rosse, and their kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro. The war against this cancer was won, but certainly not thanks to some on the left who claimed that they were 'neither with the state nor with the Red Brigades'. Incidentally, what's left of the Brigades appear to have just been prevented from carrying out another attack, this time against former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

On a different but related note, another excellent article by Michael Falzon in yesterday's Sunday Times discusses the more ordinary type of criminality (but which is no less harmful to its victims). As is often the case, I agree with almost everything he says, except that he seems to deny that the sentences being given by the Courts are too lenient. I think anyone who regularly reads a Maltese newspaper would have noticed that most, though not all, judges regularly mete out ridiculously light sentences. Bail is also often given to the most unlikely of defendants, including one who was accused of savagely murdering the mother of his child. All questions of justice aside, I don't think this is very respectful of the right of innocent citizens to live in their homes without fear.