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GV PAN FROM Police at scene of shooting TO spot where journalist was shot
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SV PAN Police markers on ground at scene
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CU Blood on ground with detectives picking shell cases from around the blood and measuring distances (3 shots)
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Initials BB/1730



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: The editor of Italy's Channel One television news programme was shot in the legs and a Milan newspaper delivery truck burned as left-wing urban guerrillas stepped up their attacks on the media. Editor Emilio Rossi was the third prominent Italian journalist to be shot in the legs in two days.

Italian Prime Minister Signor Guilio Andreotti said in the Turin daily paper "La Stampa" that the terrorist attacks were particularly worrying because it was not known who was behind them. He said the current wave of violence had created a sense of uncertainty over who was pulling the strings. Signor Andreotti said that whether the violence was inspired from within Italy or without, there was certainly a central organisation, revolutionary in spirit, which was cold-bloodedly at work.

SYNOPSIS: Police said Rossi was fired at by a man and a woman as he was walking to work at the Rome television studios of the state television company, RAI, on Friday morning (3 June).

The day before Italy's best known journalist Indro Montanelli, founder and editor of the conservative Milan daily, "Il Giornale", was shot in the legs. The deputy editor of the Genoa paper, "Il Secolo XIX" Signor Vittorio Bruno, suffered a similar attack late the previous night. The extreme left-wing group, "Red Brigades", claimed responsibility for the shooting of Signor Rossi. The extremists accused journalists of helping the Italian government to silence political opposition, suppress the workers revolutionary movement and turn the country into a police state.