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Marcello De Angelis (*February 18, 1960, Rome) is an Italian far-right politician, journalist and musician.

In his youth, De Angelis belonged to the far-right group Terza Posizione, which was involved in the 1980 Bologna massacre. He subsequently fled to the United Kingdom, which refused to extradite him, while also regularly traveling to France. In 1989, he returned to Italy and turned himself in. After three years in prison, he embarked on a career as neo-Nazi musician and journalist, eventually entering politics in the mid-2000s.

He was a senator of the right-wing to far-right Alleanza Nazionale party during the 15th legislature (2006–2008). From 2008 to 2013, he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, first for Alleanza Nazionale and then for Silvio Berlusconi’s Popolo della Libertà. He did not join Fratelli d’Italia after its foundation in 2012, but has appeared on various events organized by the party in the recent years.

He is married to Francesca De Angelis, a RAI journalist, with whom he has three sons.

Biography

De Angelis grew up in a large family with six children, five brothers and one sister, most of them proponents of the far right. De Angelis’ father was a set designer for the Italian broadcaster RAI, his grandfather was the opera singer Nazzareno De Angelis.

Logo of Fronte della Gioventù (1971–1996)

His political militancy began in his high school years. He joined the Fronte della Gioventù (Youth Front) for a short period (1974), the youth wing of the neofascist party Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement, MSI). The Youth Front was born in September 1971 from the merger of the MSI's student organization Giovane Italia (Young Italy) and the Youth Grouping of Students and Workers (Raggruppamento giovanile studenti e lavoratori), with Massimo Anderson as first secretary (1971-1977).

In 1977, with his older brother Nazareno (“Nanni”) De Angelis, he entered Lotta Studentesca (Third Position). In 1978, when the name of the movement was officially changed by its founders into Terza Posizione, the group managed to spread with great speed especially in the capital, but also in the north of Italy.

Quotes of De Angelis about this time give an impression of the extreme level of violence that he and his compatriots were enganged in:1

We were a militant group, so we were prepared for confrontation, which was a vital necessity: in those days you couldn't distribute leaflets for more than 15 minutes without a brawl. ... We were operating like the military ... When we formed a garrison or did a patrol 80 people would march in rows of four. And we were regularly beating up the 'coerced' who came with vespas ...

Terza Posizione (Italy) (1978-1982)

Terza Posizione's logo is a variation of the Wolfsangel ("wolf trap") symbol, widely used in the Nazi era, with the central bar substituted by a fist holding a hammer.

Image Source
https://en.wikipedia.org…

According to his CV, De Angelis graduated from high school (Istituto Giulio Cesare) in Rome, and subsequently studied at the Faculty of Arts and Law at La Sapienza in Rome. But he never graduated, as his terrorist activities caught up with him.

Although little details are known about the involvement of De Angelis in Terza Posizione and his role in the Bologna massacre on August 2, 1980, he was apparently afraid of getting caught, and went underground. Terza Posizione was banned and some leaders of the movement were subject to arrest warrants for subversive activities and forming an armed gang. De Angelis and fellow Terza Posizione member Roberto Fiore were hiding in Rome in the same apartment.

De Angelis’ brother Nanni died shortly after, on October 5, 1980 in Rebibbia prison, in circumstances that are still unclear. According to Roberto Fiore, it was him who delivered “the news of his brother Nanni's death in prison.”2 It is also known that the husband of De Angelis' sister Germana, Luigi Ciavardini was a member of the paramilitary arm of Terza Posizione, the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, and was initially sentenced to 30 years in prison as one of the executors of the Bologna Massacre.3

As the lore goes, De Angelis, having learned that some of his friends who were fugitives in London were about to be arrested, left by train to warn them, but was arrested and remained in London's maximum security Brixton prison for six months. The English judges denied De Angelis’ extradition to Italy due to the political nature of the alleged crimes. The files relating to the extradition request for De Angelis, Fiore, Stefano Tiraboschi and Massimo Morsello remain classified.4 Once released from prison in 1981, he started working as a graphic designer. In the UK, he came to know Nick Griffin of the British National Party. According to Graham Macklin, “Griffin’s encounter with a group of fugitive Italian fascists including Roberto Fiore, Massimo Morsello, his wife Marinella, Stefano Tiraboschi and Marcello de Angelis, radically transformed his politics.”5

According to an Italian newspaper, in 1984, he became the art director of a travel news editorial group in London.6 This must have been the “travel agency” Meeting Point/Easy London that Roberto Fiore and Nick Griffin had founded, a Mafia-like multi-business infrastructure that exploited Italians moving to the UK, which seems to have made substantial profits. According to an article by Tom Coburg in The Canary:7

Fiore ran several charity shops with links to International Third Position (ITP) ... Indeed, at that time London was home to a number of hostels and employment agencies, allegedly linked to the Italian far-right via Fiore, as well as the travel agency Meeting Point/Easy London run by him. Meeting Point/Easy London was originally set up by Fiore and British National Party’s Nick Griffin after the former and 16 other Italians fled to London following the 1980 Bologna railway station bombing. Meeting Point/Easy London ran 1,300 flats and provided work for young Italians along the lines of what today could be called modern day slavery. Fiore also ran “a chain of restaurants, Italian food shops, a music firm and some English schools” where fascists from across Europe would meet.

There are also indications that De Angelis spent time in France between 1981 and 1989, while he was facing charges in Italy.8

In 1989, he returned to Italy, turned himself in, and was sentenced to five years and six months in prison for subversive association and forming an armed gang. He served three, leaving prison in 1992, and subsequently settled in Rome.

De Angelis’ CV states that from 1991 to 1992, while still being in prison, he served as art director of Teknoart SNC in Rome, providing graphic consultancy services to the United Nations World Food Program.9

270bis

After his prison time, he discovered that the songs he had recorded on a cassette and sent to a friend in Italy, were widely listened to in far-right circles. He then founded the musical group 270bis in 1993, whose name is taken from the article of the criminal code concerning subversive associations with the aim of terrorism. The band was initially made up of De Angelis; Claudio Scotti, known as Giannetto, an old co-defendant; the young Lazio ultra Antonello Patrizi, known as Babba, and the drummer Gianluca Rizzante.10 The band released their first album in 1995, titled Lords of War, which contained some old songs of De Angelis from his terrorist years, in which he praises fascism and nazism. One song, “Bomber Nero,” is talking about “a little boy in a black bomber jacket, with his hair shaved and his arm stretched out, shouting Sieg Heil.”11

Just around that time (ca. 1993), De Angelis had allegedly an affair with the 16-year old Giorgia Meloni.12 She mentions him in her autobiography, stating that she was a fan of his “Identitarian music.”13 According to the book I potenti al tempo di Giorgia:14

It is he [De Angelis] who made Giorgia understand what being right-wing meant for young militants in the 1970s, after she had started attending the Colle Oppio section of the Youth Front. … There is no doubt that they had a strong bond. Even though they were not the same age, the road they traveled together was long. They met when she was sixteen. They were always together, more or less discreetly, even making the fundamentalists of the currents turn up their noses. ... It seems that it was Marcello who initiated Giorgia into writing and journalism at the «Secolo d'Italia». It was certainly De Angelis who gave her a guitar when she was more or less twenty years old, and he also wrote her some songs, trying to convince her that she could have a future as an "area" singer. A failed experiment. Many say fortunately.

25th Anniversary of the GUD

On May 3, 1993, De Angelis took part in the 25th anniversary of the French militant neofascist Groupe Union Défense (GUD). According to Les Rats Maudit:15

On May 3, 1993, at the Palais de la Mutualité, the GUD celebrated its 25th anniversary. The very provocative poster, “In Paris as in Gaza, Intifada,” was heavily criticized by the movement’s veterans. The black rat dressed in a Palestinian keffiyeh was seen by some as heresy. Frédéric Chatillon, first speaker at the meeting and instigator of the poster, was quick to explain the reasons for this choice. … In front of nearly five hundred GUD activists representing all generations, on a platform … bearing the inscription Groupe Union Défense surrounded by two Celtic crosses and under a banner of flags from different French and European provinces, five political leaders took turns. Jean-Pierre Emié, known as “Johnny the boxer,” a nickname that lives up to his reputation, student at Assas between 74 and 79; Arnaud Lutin, head of the GUD in the 80s; Frédéric Chatillon, head of the GUD in the 90s, Marcello De Angelis, Italian nationalist fighter whom the GUD knew when he was on the run in France; and a speaker for the NSV, a Flemish nationalist student. After the interventions, a twenty-minute slideshow was projected, retracing the history of the movement against a backdrop of rhythmical music corresponding to each era. Then Frank Rennicke, the best-known bard of the nationalist scene in Germany, brought calm to the excited room.

Flyer advertising the 25th anniversary of the GUD on May 3, 1993, designed by Frédéric Chatillon. Source: Les Rats Maudits, p. 136.

25th Anniversary of the GUD, Jean-Pierre Émié and Frédéric Chatillon. Source: Les Rats Maudits, p. 137.

The 25th anniversary meeting of the GUD. From left to right: the Italian delegate Marcello De Angelis; the representative of the GUD during the 1980s, Arnaud Lutin; a Flemish representative of the NSV; and the representative of the GUD in the 1970s, Jean-Pierre Émié. The Flemish representative wore a faluche on his head, a student fraternity cap. Source: Les Rats Maudits, p. 137.

La spina nel fianco

Besides recording and touring with his band, De Angelis embarked on a journalistic and political career. In the early 1990s, he ran a Third Positionist newspaper called The thorn in the flank (La spina nel fianco) together with Maurice Bignami, former leader of the terrorist group Prima Linea.16

L’Italia settimanale (1992-1996)

Since its foundation, he worked as a foreign affairs editor for the right-wing periodical L'Italia settimanale (1992–1996), directed by Marcello Veneziani, which became a reference point for proponents of the nascent Alleanza Nazionale party (AN, 1994/1995-2009). De Angelis joined AN upon its foundation in 1995, but it was not until the early 2000s that he held political functions.

Area (1996-2010)

From 1996 to 1997, he was first the editor-in-chief, and until 2010, the director of the monthly Area (1996–2014?) of the so-called Social Right faction of AN, represented by Giovanni "Gianni" Alemanno and Francesco Storace.

In 2002, De Angelis passed a state exam for the Order of Professional Journalists (Ordine dei giornalisti professionisti). Besides directing Area, from 2003 to 2005, he was the director of the monthly magazine I Nostri cani (Our Dogs), organ of the national body of Italian dog breeding.9

According to his CV, from 2001 to 2005, he served as the “Chairman of the Mediterranean and Middle East Commission of the liaison committee between the Italian government and the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States].”9

While working for the FAO, he also did promotion campaigns for the Italian agri-food company Mipaf in 2002. From 2004 to 2005, he worked again for Mipaf in the “planning and implementation of national and international trade fair events.”

From 2003 to 2004, he worked as consultant for the advertising agency “SCS Comunicazione Integrata Gruppo STET-SEAT.” In 2004, he provided “audiovisual design and production” services to Inail, a public body that protects workers from occupational injuries and diseases. In 2004, his book Eight years in the box was published by Minotauro.17

Giorgia Meloni and Marcello De Angelis, presumably in the early 2000s. He wears a pin advertising the “Destra Sociale” of the Alleanza Nazionale, represented by Gianni Alemanno and Francesco Storace.

Image Source
https://www.lettera43.it/marcello-de-angelis-rocc…
Senate of the Republic (2006–2008)

During the 15th legislature (2006–2008), De Angelis was elected a Senator of the Republic on the list of Alleanza Nazionale in Abruzzo, the successor party of the neofascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI). During that period, he was a member of the agriculture commission and the supervisory committee on the Schengen agreements, as well as secretary of the commission of inquiry into depleted uranium.9

Il Popolo della Libertà (2009-2013)

In 2008, De Angelis ran as a candidate for Alleanza Nazionale on the list of Silvio Berlusconi’s party People of Freedom (Il Popolo della Libertà, PdL, 2008/2009-2013), again in Abruzzo. PdL started out as an electoral list that included Forza Italia, Alleanza Nazionale, Azione Sociale and other minor parties. Subsequently, he was elected Member of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian Parliament. He joined PdL in 2009, and remained in the party until 2013. During the XVI legislature (2008–2013), De Angelis was a member of the Defense Commission and the RAI Supervisory Commission, as well as the secretary of the Budget commission. He also served as president of the Italy-Türkiye Inter-Parliamentary Group. Against this backdrop, from 2010 to 2011, De Angelis was a board member of the Italian Institute of Studies on Africa and the Orient (Istituto di studi italiano sull’Africa e l’Oriente). He remained an honorary member after that.9

Initially, De Angelis was linked to the Social Right (Destra sociale) faction of AN and to Gianni Alemanno an Francesco Storace for several years. Later, after the confluence of AN with the Popolo della Libertà he became close to Gianfranco Fini. Within the Finian “current” he was considered a “dove,” working towards avoiding a the break with Silvio Berlusconi. When followers of Fini formed Futuro and Libertà (Future and Freedom) in 2010, he remained in Berlusconi's PdL. In February 2013, he ran as a candidate for PdL, but was not re-elected to Parliament.

Secolo d’Italia (2011–2013)

From May 201118 until November 201319 [his CV says 2010-2013], De Angelis was director of the newspaper Secolo d'Italia, a pro-fascist daily founded in 1952. During his editorship, the publisher decided to stop the print edition and move on to the web (2012). He left the post in 2013, stating in his last editorial that his political positions were “not in tune” with the target audience.19

In 2012, it was reported that Giorgia Meloni was dating De Angelis’ brother Renato, a writer for RAI television, while she was President of PdL’s youth wing, Giovane Italia, and Marcello De Angelis sat in the Chamber of Deputies for PdL.20 She was dating Renato for a few years, and was in a relationship with him when, at the end of 2012, she was among the co-founders of the Fratelli d’Italia party.

Between 2013 and 2015, De Angelis contributed to the newspapers Libero and il Tempo and to the magazines Microcredito21 and Storia in Rete. During that time he also worked as a consultant for the National Microcredit Entity (Ente nazionale del microcredito) that published Microcredito, according to his CV.9 De Angelis’ LinkedIn profile states that he received the bronze medal of merit by the Italian Red Cross in 2014.22

In 2015, De Angelis published the novel There’s a body in my champagne (C'è un cadavere nel mio champagne) about an antique dealer gone investigator Louis Le Manac’h, “Going through the lives and stories of Breton and Irish independence activists, arms dealers, policemen, Nazis, partisans, priests and tender apparently defenseless ladies.”23

Perigeo (2015–2016)

From 2015 to 2016, De Angelis was a project manager with the NGO Perigeo.24 From 2013 to 2014, the NGO had worked alongside the Italian Navy in the Operation Mare Nostrum, a year-long naval and air operation commenced by the Italian government in October 2013, which rescued at least 150,000 migrants while crossing the Mediterranean sea. The operation ended in October 2014, and was superseded by Frontex’s Operation Triton.

The collaboration between the Italian Navy and Perigeo was cemented in January 2015 when they signed “a Letter of Intent providing for shared international activities and projects.” Pictures from that event include De Angelis.25 Thus it may be assumed that the latter was involved in Perigeo while the NGO was engaged with the Italian Navy during operations in the Mediterranean, possibly in the context of Frontex’s disastrous Triton operation. he number of migrants who lost their lives while crossing the Mediterranean surged significantly since Triton started. The International Organization for Migration has highlighted that the fatalities at sea have multiplied by nine since the conclusion of Operation Mare Nostrum. According to a report by The New York Times, the early months of 2015 witnessed a staggering 1600% rise in the number of migrants who drowned while attempting to cross the Mediterranean, in comparison to the same period in 2014.26

According to a news website, De Angelis “carried out missions in Syria, Lebanon, Ethiopia and Gaza” while at Perigeo.
27

In 2017, De Angelis published Cosa significa oggi essere di destra? (What does it mean to be right-wing today?) with the publishing house Luigi Pellegrini.28 One event on his book tour was organized by the Gioventù Nazionale section in Catanzaro, Calabria, the youth wing of Fratelli d’Italia (Fd)), at which also several local FdI politicians were present.29 Although De Angelis never joined FdI, he subsequently attended various events organized by the party.

Marcello De Angelis at an event organized by the Gioventù Nazionale section in Catanzaro, Calabria, the youth wing of Fratelli d’Italia, at which also several local FdI politicians were present.

Image Source
https://www.catanzaroinforma.it/cronaca/2018/10/2…

On December 22, 2017, De Angelis posted a picture of a Julleuchter, a pagan lantern adopted by the Nazis. His particular version matches the design of the SS.30

Francesco Rocca

From 2017 to 2018, De Angelis was Chief of Staff of Francesco Rocca, the President of the Italian Red Cross (2013-2022) and president of the International Federation of the Red Cross (2017-2023). From 2018 to 2020, De Angelis served as a spokesperson for Rocca.9 In June/July 2018, he helped teach a course in emergency communication at the Sapienza University of Rome.22

In 2019, De Angelis co-edited a book about the far-right ideologue Giano Accame (1928–2008) (Giano Accame: la vita, l’idea) published by Eclettica edizioni.31 In 1965, Accame took part in the conference at the Hotel Parco dei Principi on anti-communist revolutionary warfare, organized by personalities at the top of the Armed Forces and exponents of the Italian radical Right, giving a speech on “The counter-revolution of the Greek generals.” Accame collaborated with several newspapers that also De Angelis came to work with, including L’Italia settimanale, Area, and Il Tempo. And he was the director of Secolo d’Italia (1988–1990) before De Angelis succeeded him.

He introduced the book at various events, including at the headquarters of Fratelli d’Italia in January 2020.32

Pino Rauti Study Center

On February 11, 2020, De Angelis took part in the conference “Fifty years of printing and propaganda of the Italian Right (1945-1995),” held in the parliamentary proceedings room of the Palazzo della Minerva, and promoted by Senator Gianni Marilotti, President of the Commission for the Library and the Historical Archive of the Senate.33 The proceedings of the conference were published in a 63-page brochure, including the speech by De Angelis.34 The conference was prepared with the help of the Centro Studi Pino Rauti (Pino Rauti Study Center), dedicated to the rehabilitation and commemoration of Pino Rauti, and largely run by his daughter Isabella Rauti (*1962), who since November 2022 serves as Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Defense in the Meloni government.35 From 1992 to 1997, she was married to Gianni Alemanno, with whom De Angelis had worked within Alleanza Nazionale and the journal Area. Among the other participants was notably Emanuele Merlino, son of terrorist Mario Merlino who was close to the far-right terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie.

On April 22, 2020, De Angelis took part in online discussion organized by the FdI politician Carlo Fidanza of the European Conservatives and Reformists in the European Parliament. The event was titled “The culture of the Right and the antivirus,” and was part of a series called "Our Europe" (La Nostra Europa).36

On April 1, 2021, De Angelis appeared as a speaker at a Facebook Live event organized by Nazione Futura, a think tank of the Fratelli d’Italia party.37

Italian Red Cross

From October 2020 onward, De Angelis held the role of culture, events and publications manager of the Italian Red Cross. That position came with a salary of 110,000 euros a year.6

When in March 2023 Francesco Rocca became President of the Lazio region, whose capital is Rome, and subsequently resigned as head of the International Red Cross and the Italian Red Cross in December 2023, De Angelis served Rocca in his new political function. He was made institutional communication manager of the Lazio Region sometime in spring 2023.38

On August 29, 2023, De Angelis resigned from his position, when the Italian media unearthed some of his most radical writings, including some of the neo-Nazi song texts written by him in earlier years.39

As of late, also De Angelis' sister Germana has come into the focus for her neo-Nazi activities. Since around 2009, she runs the association Gruppo Idee together with her husband, the former NAR terrorist Luigi Ciavardini, which extends material aid to incarcerated people and organizes events for them, such as neo-Nazi rock concerts.40 According to an online blog, in 2023, “At Borghetto, a cultural meeting space whose address corresponds to that of the Gruppo Idee association,” a neo-Nazi concert took place by the band “Gesta Bellica, whose songs praise ‘white power’ and the executioner of the Ardeatine Massacre, Erich Priebke.”38

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