BOLOGNA – Paolo Bellini, the fifth member of the neo-fascist terrorist organisation held reponsible for the Emilia-Romagna city's 1980 train station bombing, has been sentenced to a lifetime in prison, including one year of solitary confinement, judicial sources said.

 Bellini, 68, was a member of the neo-fascist National Vanguard and the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (NAR), the latter of which was deemed responsible for the tragedy.

 The bomb was detonated in a waiting room of Bologna’s central train station on the morning of August 2, 1980. It killed 85 people, two of whom were a British couple, and injured 200.

 In addition to Bellini, who was not present in the courtroom at the time the sentence was read, the Bologna Court of Assizes also held the other two defendants responsible in the latest trial on the Bologna massacre. The former captain of the carabinieri Piergiorgio Segatel accused of misdirection, was given six years in prison. Domenico Catracchia, former administrator of condominiums in via Gradoli, in Rome, who was accused of providing false information to the public prosecutor in order to divert the investigation, must serve four years in jail.

 Upon reading the sentence, the courtroom, crowded with families of the victims, reacted with composed joy and relief, which they shared with the lawyers of the civil party and Mayor Matteo Lepore and the vice president of the region Elly Schlein, who were all present.

 The investigation into the Bologna massacre was reopened after a video taken by a German tourist at the time, appeared to show a figure who closely resembled Bellini. 

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