The Measure of Forgery

The statements of the Red Brigades

Abstract

In Italy, during the so-called Years of Lead, the Red Brigades disseminated several written statements, in which they summarized the ideological intentions and the plan for the Armed Struggle. In addition to the propaganda dissemination, the Red Brigades reported about crimes and kidnappings of personalities from industry and politics using the form of written communication. In 1978, the Red Brigades kidnapped Aldo Moro giving news through a first statement, which was followed by nine other statements, one of which represents a fake. In the present study we show the possibilities of linguistic investigation in forensic science using Computational Stylometry techniques. Taking as an example the statements that appeared during the Moro Case, it will be shown a posteriori to what extent the fake statement is different from the original ones. Furthermore, through the stylometric analysis of the statements, we show which are the stylistic and lexical characteristics that distinguish the group of Red Brigades statements from the fake one.