Christmas Gift

Menaced, maimed, then freed

Over the past two decades, Italians have certainly seen more than their share of photographs portraying forlorn kidnap victims. But this one was particularly pathetic: a woman and her son huddled together, chains around their necks, a pistol held to the woman's left temple, the right side of the youth's face caked with dried blood. In a barbaric attempt to force a ransom payment rumored to be as large as $4.2 million, the kidnapers apparently had cut off the youth's ear. If the money was not forthcoming, they warned, their two captives would be slaughtered.

The latest victims were Anna Bulgari Calissoni, 56, part owner of the world-famous Bulgari jewelry chain, and her 17-year-old son Giorgio. Mrs. Calissoni, granddaughter of Constantine Bulgari, a founder of the firm, and wife of retired General Franco Calissoni, was abducted along with her son on Nov. 19 from her country home 20 miles south of Rome. It was not the first time kidnapers had singled out the family: in 1975 Gianni Bulgari, Anna's cousin, was abducted, and released only after the family paid a ransom of about $2 million. The family was believed to have been ready to pay off this time too, but a Rome magistrate blocked the Bulgari assets; Italian officials have used the tactic to discourage kidnaping.

Angered by the move, the abductors telephoned Laura Calissoni, 29, daughter of Anna and sister of Giorgio, and informed her that something was waiting in a trash can in Rome's Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore. There in a plastic bag the family found a severed ear that investigators believed to be Giorgio's. A second caller directed a reporter from the Rome daily Il Messaggero to another garbage can, in Piazza Barberini, where the photograph was found, accompanied by two messages. One, from Anna Calissoni, was addressed to Pope John Paul II. "I pray you," the note read, "to intercede in an unofficial and discreet manner with my family so that they may free us from this torment and allow us to regain our human dignity." In the second message, the kidnapers offered "our reply to the so-called blockage of assets": if their demands were not met, they would "do away" with the hostages. The message was signed Comunisti d'Attacco (Communists of the Attack).

The episode was reminiscent of the kidnaping of the grandson of Oil Tycoon John Paul Getty in Rome in 1973, when young Getty's ear was cut off and mailed to Il Messaggero. His family eventually paid a reported $2.8 million to his abductors. Last week's grisly find renewed debate in Italy about the wisdom of blocking ransom payments. The Bulgari and Calissoni families issued a statement to the effect that negotiations with the kidnapers would continue, suggesting that the authorities may have made it possible for the family to circumvent the magistrate's action and pay a ransom. That suspicion was reinforced when, on Christmas Eve, the Bulgari heiress and her boy were suddenly freed in an area south of Rome. No mention was made, by the police or the Bulgari family, of any ransom having been paid.