Driver killed at border

Press, 7 August 1976, Page 6

Driver killed at border

NZPA-Reuter East Berlin Italy has protested to the East German Government over the killing of an Italian lorry driver at a bordei crossing into West Germany and aemanded a full explanation of the shooting, an Italian Embassy spokesman has said in East Berlin. The incident, the latest in a series of border shootings in the last few months, happened on Thursday. West German Government reports said Benito Corghi, aged 38, from Rubiera in Northern Italy, drove his truck laden with fresh meat across the border early in the morning. After he had cleared West German customs, he was told by another Italian driver, who followed him across, that he was wanted back at the Communist border post about Ikm away, a West German Government spokesman said. West German border guards heard shots but did not connect them with the Italian driver. The East German news agency, A.D.N., said that Mr Corghi ignored warnings and was shot and wounded. He died in hospital in Jena, some 70km from the border crossing at Hirschberg in Bavaria. An Italian Embassy spokesman in East Berlin said an Embassy envoy delivered a protest note to the East German Foreign Ministry and demanded a full explanation of the shooting. An Embassy official left for Jena and arrangements were being made to fly Mr Corghi’s body to Italy.