Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Rome, Lazio, Italy
About Silvia Baraldini
- Silvia Baraldini (December 12, 1947) is an Italian activist.
- She was active in both the Black Power and Puerto Rican independence movements in the United States in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
- In 1982 she was sentenced to 43 years under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for conspiring to commit two armed robberies, driving a secondary getaway car during the prison break of murder convict and fellow political activist Assata Shakur (a.k.a.
- Joanne Chesimard) and for contempt of court for refusing to testify before a Grand Jury that was investigating the activities of the Puerto Rican independence movement.Although the government sustained that her sentence was appropriate given the serious nature of her crimes, her supporters argued that her harsh sentence was due to her unpopular political beliefs.
- Baraldini was imprisoned in numerous high-security facilities in the United States, including the notorious basement unit of a Federal Prison in Lexington, Kentucky which housed two other women, Susan Rosenberg and Alejandrina Torres, also convicted of politically motivated crimes.
- The unit was sharply criticized by Amnesty International and its closure was eventually ordered by U.S.
- District Judge Barrington Parker.
- After being transferred to Italy in 1999 to serve the remainder of her sentence, she was released on September 26, 2006, thanks to a pardon law approved in the previous months by the Italian Parliament. Italian journalist Lucio Manisco acted in favor of Silvia Baraldini's extradition; he was then a foreign correspondent of the Italian public television channel Rai 3 (1987–1992).
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