The two people killed in explosion at a disused farmhouse in Rome were known to police as members of the anarchist network linked to Alfredo Cospito.
What initially appeared to be the tragic deaths of two rough sleepers in a derelict building in Rome has evolved into a significant domestic security incident for Italy.
The two people killed when the Casale del Sellaretto in Rome’s Parco degli Acquedotti was destroyed by an explosion on the night of Thursday 19 March have been identified as Sara Ardizzone and Alessandro Mercogliano.
Both were prominent figures in the anarchist movement associated with jailed extremist Alfredo Cospito, and investigators now believe they were assembling a homemade bomb at the time of their deaths.
The victims were identified through tattoos on their bodies, and their names were recognised by investigators as belonging to the so-called “Cospito group”, news agency ANSA reports.
Victims of explosion
Alessandro Mercogliano, 53, had previously been convicted at first instance of association with terrorist intent as part of the Scripta Manent investigation into the Informal Anarchist Federation, though he was subsequently acquitted on appeal.
Sara Ardizzone, 35, had been investigated alongside Cospito and other anarchists in the Sibilla proceedings on charges of incitement to crime and evasion aggravated by terrorist intent, and during a preliminary hearing she described herself as an enemy of the Italian state and of every state.
The physical condition of the bodies strongly supported the bomb-making hypothesis: the man’s body was found to be missing an arm and showed multiple burns, consistent with handling an explosive device at the moment of detonation, while the woman is believed to have been killed by the collapse of the roof that followed the blast.
Investigation
Investigators believe the explosion caused the roof of the farmhouse to be blown upwards before crashing back down, burying both victims beneath the rubble.
Rome anti-terrorism prosecutors have opened an investigation and is working to reconstruct the pair’s final movements and contacts in the hours preceding the explosion.
As for potential targets, investigators are considering several possibilities. Investigators have not excluded that the device may have been intended for use against the railway network or against installations belonging to Leonardo, the Italian defence and aerospace group.
Anarchy and sabotage
Anarchist groups had already claimed responsibility for acts of sabotage against Italy’s high-speed rail network in February, linked to protests against the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, and the interior ministry has reported a 450 per cent rise in railway sabotage by antagonist groups between 2024 and 2025.
Investigators are also considering the possibility that an attack was being planned as a show of force ahead of the major pro-Askatasuna rally scheduled for Rome on 28 March, and to coincide with a renewed campaign in support of Cospito ahead of the May expiry of the four-year order placing him under the 41-bis maximum security prison regime.
Reaction
The political response was swift. Foreign minister Antonio Tajani told Tg24 that there was a “climate of tension that anarchist and far-left elements” were seeking to sustain, and that the fact two anarchists had allegedly been handling a bomb on the eve of a referendum vote was deeply troubling.
Interior minister Matteo Piantedosi convened the committee for strategic anti-terrorism analysis at the Viminale for Saturday, a meeting at which the threat posed by the anarchist movement was expected to feature prominently, ANSA reports.
Who is Alfredo Cospito?
Alfredo Cospito, the figurehead of the network to which both victims belonged, was convicted and sentenced to 23 years for an attack with terrorist intent, and remains in prison under the strict 41-bis regime, which is designed to prevent him from communicating with the broader anarchist-insurrectionist network outside.
Cospito, 58, is Italy’s first anarchist to be held under 41-bis terms, a prison regime normally reserved for top mafia bosses.
He is serving time for knee-capping a nuclear energy manager in Genoa in 2012 and for bomb attacks on a police academy in Fossano in 2016, masterminded while he was in prison.
His continued detention under this regime has been the central rallying point for the movement in recent months, and the latest dramatic events are likely to intensify scrutiny of a network that Italy’s intelligence services have described as the most concrete domestic security threat facing the country.
Photo Vigili del Fuoco
