ITALY: President Bush visited the Ardeatine Caves, site of one of the worst second World War massacres in Italy, on the first day of his European trip commemorating major battles in the conflict.
The massacre took place on March 24th, 1944, and is regarded as one of the most serious war crimes committed in Italy.
A day earlier a bomb had exploded in Rome's Via Rasella as a German unit was marching past. It killed 33 soldiers.
Under the direction of SS Lieut Col Herbert Kappler, 335 Italians who had no connection with the Rasella affair were taken from various prisons and were shot dead in groups of five and buried in the Ardeatine Caves.
Adolf Hitler had ordered that 10 people be killed for every dead German stormtrooper, but an extra five were shot by mistake. The victims, who included 75 Jews, were taken to the Ardeatine Caves, near the catacombs of early Christians outside Rome, and shot.
Former Nazi major Karl Hass, who died in 2004, and ex-SS captain Erich Priebke were convicted of participating in the 1944 massacre. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 2001, Italy's Supreme Court threw out Priebke's request to be released from house arrest where he is serving his sentence. - (Reuters)