In 1989, the Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism, headed by Senator Giovanni Pellegrino, issued an official statement concerning the crash of Flight 870, which became known as the "Ustica Massacre" (Strage di Ustica). The crash was referred to as "primarily an act of war, a de facto unreported war – as has been customary ever since Pearl Harbor, until the latest Balkan conflict – an international police operation, in fact, up to the great powers, since there was no mandate in this sense; a non-military coercive action exercised lawfully or illicitly, by one State against another; or an act of terrorism, as it was later claimed, of an attack on a head of state or regime leader."{Ordinanza-sentenza, 1999, p. 4965}
