TO BE RELEASED.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18906, 22 January 1927, Page 15

TO BE RELEASED.

ASSAILANT OF MUSSOLINI. MISS GIBSON GOES TO FRIENDS. (B» CABLE—rr.ESS ASSOCIATION— COPTSIGHT.J (AUSTRALIA* AND K.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION.; (Received January 21st, 7.10 p.m.) ROME, January 20. The Italian Government has decided to drop the prosecution against Miss Violet Gibson for firing at Mussolini as she was not responsible for her actions. Moreover, the authorities are desirous of avoiding prosecuting the Irishwoman, who will be handed over to the care of her family.

While .Mussolini was loavinji iho International' Congress of Surgery at Rome on April 7th, an elderly Irishwoman, Miss Violet Albina Gibson, fired a revolver almost point-blank at him, wounding him slightly in the nose.

Mussolini -was quite calm, and immediately gave directions, with a viewto preventing a disturbance. The woman was with difficulty rescued from the incensed crowd and taken to prison. Miss Gibson, who was 50 years of age, was a central figure in a Holy Year drama at Rome in February. 1925/ She ' is a devout Catholic. Wse attended ecclesiastical ceremonies, and later, while under the influence of a fit of religious exhaustion, shot herself in the chest in a bedroom in a private hotel. Her father was the first Lord Ashbourne, prominent in Irish nolitics, and Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

A member of the family stated lhat Miss Gibson> had been residing at Rome for eighteen months. After her attempted suicide she was discharged from the hosnital under the fare nf lier friends. She bad no political sympathies in any direction, but wns mnndv and deeply relicrions. Her mother died a fortnight before the attempt on the Dictator's life.