Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa has
said making Fascist salutes is not necessarily always a crime
amid a major furore over the salutes made by many participants
at ceremony commemorating the 1978 Acca Larentia massacre in
Rome on Sunday.
"The fact that there is uncertainty about whether certain
gestures in commemoration cases (are considered criminal) does
not help to resolve the issue," La Russa, a founding member of
Premier Giorgia Meloni's right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI)
party whose roots go back to the neo-fascist Italian Social
Movement (MSI), told Italian dailies.
He said there were "conflicting rulings" about whether such acts
were criminal, adding that he was looking forward to an upcoming
ruling by the Supreme Court of Cassation regarding the crime of
apology of Fascism.
He added that FdI had nothing to do with what happened at
Sunday's ceremony recalling the Acca Larentia massacre, in which
two members of the MSI's youth wing, Franco Bigonzetti and
Francesco Ciavatta, aged 13 and 17, were shot dead, allegedly by
far left militants, outside the party's Rome headquarters in the
street named after a Roman goddess.
A third MSI youth wing member, Stefano Recchioni, 19, was
fatally injured by a stray bullet during ensuing clashes by
members of the youth wing, the Fronte della Gioventù, who rioted
after the deaths, and police.
Vittoria Baldino, an MP for the opposition 5-Star Movement
(M5S), blasted La Russa's comments in a Facebook post,
describing them as "horrific".
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