Italian anarchists claim nuclear boss shooting

An Italian anarchist group behind a series of letter-bomb attacks claimed responsibility today for the shooting and wounding of the head of a nuclear energy company earlier this week.

The claim by the "Olga Cell" of the Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), which has links to Greek extremist anarchist groups, was received by letter at the Milan office of Italy's top-selling daily Corriere della Sera.

"We hobbled Roberto Adinolfi, one of the great and numerous witch doctors of nuclear energy," the group said in a letter sent from Genoa in northwest Italy where Monday's attack happened as Adinolfi was coming out of his home.

The letter cited a statement by Adinolfi in which he appeared to minimise the environmental impact of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima in Japan.

The FAI in December 2011 claimed a letter bomb attack sent to the director general of the Italian tax collection agency Equitalia, which wounded him in the face and hands -- one of several similar attacks over the past decade.

Adinolfi, 59, is the head of Ansaldo Nucleare, a subsidiary of industrial giant Finmeccancia, specialising in the construction of nuclear reactors, the de-activation of nuclear power stations and the handling of nuclear waste.

"With the wounding of Adinolfi we are proposing a battle against Finmeccanica, the killer squid," the claim letter said.

It also said there could be at least eight similar attacks -- the same number of anarchist "prisoners" held in Greece.

The name of the cell claiming responsibility could refer to Olga Ekonomidou, a member of an anarchist group arrested in Greece earlier this year.

Adinolfi was followed by a gunman who shot him in the ankle as he was coming out of his house and then escaped on a motorbike.

Investigators pointed to a possible anarchist attack early in their investigations but they were also looking into possible links with the far-left Red Brigades group which claimed similar attacks in the 1970s and 1980s.

The executive was released from hospital today.