Forensic multidisciplinary involvement after terrorist attacks

Forensic considerations on the two major civilian terrorist events occurred in Milan: A retrospective autopsy-based study

Explosion-related deaths are a disregarded topic of forensic sciences, despite the pivotal role of the forensic pathologist in such investigations. In fact, very few scientific articles have been published up to now, even if there is a considerable increase of terrorist attacks worldwide due to the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In this paper, the authors show a retrospective autopsy-based study on the two major civilian terrorist events which occurred in Milan (Italy). The first one took place in a closed system, where a gelignite bomb was set inside the National Agriculture Bank in December 1969. 17 people were killed, and all of them underwent forensic autopsies, which were performed at the Milan Institute of Legal Medicine. The second event took place in an open system, where a car bomb exploded in Palestro Street in July 1993. 5 people were killed, forensic autopsies were performed as well. A total of 22 explosion-related deaths were assessed in this study. For each victim, the analysis of clothes, external and internal examinations were reported; furthermore, a statistical analysis using Fisher's exact test was carried out in order to show differences among blast injuries that occurred in a closed system versus an open system. The analysis of the autopsy reports, which included the descriptions of clothes, and the injury patterns allowed a possible reconstruction of the bodily exposure side of the victims in relation to the origin site of the explosive devices.