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GV & SV Mourners and wreaths outside building (2 shots)
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GV Coffin bearers carry coffin past mourners making Communist salute (2 shots)
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SV Coffin carried through streets with relatives following (3 shots)
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SV & GV Coffin carried towards and into church (3 shots)
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Initials BB/1530 TA/JB/BB/1600



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Thousands of mourners giving the clenched fist Communist salute gathered for the funeral of young left-winger Gaetano Amoroso in Milan northern Italy on Wednesday (5 May).

A neo-Fascist gang stabbed Amoroso and two companions in a fight in Milan on Tuesday April 27. Amoroso died in hospital three days later. On Thursday (29 April) the day before Amoroso died, 40-year-old Enrico Pedenovi, a member of the central committee of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement Party (MSI) was found dead in his car with three bullets in his body. He had been attacked by two gunmen.

As Signor Pedenovi's funeral on Monday (3 May), MSI party leader Signor Giorgio Almirante said "We are at war". After Signor Amoroso's funeral about 3,000 leftists gathered angrily outside the MSI party headquarters.

The violence in Italy coincides with a period of political uncertainty in the country as the general election on June 20 approaches. Italian caretaker Prime Minister Signor Aldo Moro in his final address to parliament before resigning said, "A dark subversive design is taking shape, and it is based on terror". In the elections the Communists expect to make gains at the expense of centre and right-wing parties.