Carlo Biotti

Carlo Biotti (1901 to 1977) was an Italian judge who became President of the Court of Milan and a magistrate of the Supreme Court of Cassation. He is remembered chiefly for the case brought by the widow of Giuseppe Pinelli against police commissioner Luigi Calabresi, who had led the investigation into the Piazza Fontana bombing. Pinelli had died in unexplained circumstances during a police interrogation after the bombing. Biotti presided over the case and ordered that Pinelli's body be exhumed, and he and his two fellow judges were not convinced that Pinelli had died by falling from the window of the police station. On 27 May 1971 he was recused at the request of Calabresi's lawyer, who claimed that Biotti had privately admitted forming an opinion already, a claim Biotti vehemently denied. The recusal prevented the exhumation and delayed the investigation for two years. He fought to clear his name and was completely exonerated by the Court of Florence in November 1974. From 1964 he was also a director of A.C. Milan.