PEACE-TIME COURT-MARTIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 633, 9 April 1929, Page 14

PEACE-TIME COURT-MARTIAL

EXECUTION IN ITALY It was the sentence passed on a murderer by a special military tribunal at Rome recently, which was exceptional, not the crime. A consumptive Tuscan out-of-work killed two Fascists, a tailor and a builder, with a revolver supplied by a friend, who may have wished to avenge his brother’s death. The murderer admitted that the crime was actuated through hatred of the Fascists in general. The public prosecutor maintained that attempting the lives of Fascists and killing them was an attempt oh the life of the regime, which also meant an act against the safety of the State, and be therefore asked for the death penalty. Della Maggiora, the murderer, was sentenced to be shot within 24 hours, near the place where the crime ha 4 been committed, while Spadonl, who had supplied the firearm, was sentenced to 18 years’ penal servitude. An appeal for the King’s pardon, presented by the defence, was sent to the military authorities at Rome, who did not think it advisable to push matters further, and orders reached Lucca at midnight on Wednesday, and at six on Thursday morning the execution was carried out, under the orders of a Tuscan legion of Fascist militia, called the Faithful. Della Maggiora was shot by 12 militiaman, at a distance of 30 feet.

Throughout the trial and up to the end the prisoner showed neither weakness nor regrets. For the first time the death penalty has been paasod by a special tribunal and carried out according to the letter of the Defence of the Realm Act passed in 1426, and the military penal code, which was rendered more Draconian by 'the new Fascist legislation legalising procedure in holding courts-wiartial in peace-time.