Attack on Italian nuke chief raises fears of anarchist violence

Luca Zennaro / EPA

Italian military police investigate the site where Roberto Adinolfi, the chief executive of a state-controlled nuclear company, was shot in Genoa, Italy, on Monday.

By msnbc.com and news services

MILAN - The head of a nuclear power company was shot in the leg by an unidentified gunman in Italy on Monday, police said, in an incident reminiscent of politically motivated violence that raged in the country in the 1970s and 1980s.

Roberto Adinolfi, chief executive of Ansaldo Nucleare, a company linked to Italian defence conglomerate Finmeccanica, was shot in the street outside his house in Genoa in northern Italy, police said.

Shooting people in the legs was a trademark practice by the Red Brigades, a left-wing guerrilla group that carried out a campaign of murder and kidnapping aimed at destabilizing Italy in the 1970s and 1980s.  More >>