ITALY: An anonymous male phone caller purporting to speak for the Red Brigades last night claimed responsibility for the assassination of Marco Biagi, the economist and government adviser gunned down outside his Bologna city-centre home on Tuesday night.
The caller left his message with the switchboard of the Bologna daily, Il Resto del Carlino, saying simply: "We are the Red Brigades and we claim responsibility for the killing of Professor Biagi. A communique will follow shortly."
Even though police investigators were inevitably cautious about immediately confirming the "bona fide" nature of the phone call, the latter-day Red Brigades are clearly the number one suspects for a "political" killing that appears to have been prompted by Mr Biagi's role as an adviser to the current centre-right government.
Mr Biagi, who was 52, had been closely involved in ongoing negotiations between the government and trade unions over controversial government proposals aimed at introducing greater flexibility into the labour market, proposals that have prompted the unions to call a forthcoming general strike.
The belief that the reformist Mr Biagi was killed by left-wing extremists because of his alleged "betrayal" of the labour movement has been strengthened by the obvious similarities between his murder and that of Massimo D'Antona in May 1999. Mr D'Antona, also an economist and government adviser, was shot down in Rome in a killing later claimed by Red Brigade activists and in which the murder weapon was a 9mm handgun, similar to that used on Tuesday night.
Pope John Paul II, the European Commission President Romano Prodi and Italian Prime Minister, Mr Silvio Berlusconi, were among those who, right across the political divide, yesterday paid tribute to the memory of Mr Biagi. Speaking at his weekly public audience in St Peter's Square, the Pope expressed his horror at "this most recent manifestation of senseless violence", while calling for the establishment of "a climate of dialogue between the social partners in this dear Italian nation".
Mr Berlusconi, confirming that Mr Biagi will be given a state funeral due to be attended by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, also called on the social partners to resume negotiations immediately. Mr Prodi described the killing as "the latest episode in an unbroken line of hatred".
As the investigation into the killing gets under way, the decision last December to remove Mr Biagi's police escort will certainly come under scrutiny.