VATICAN EXPLOSION

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 59, 2 December 1933, Page 7

VATICAN EXPLOSION

Alleged Murder Plotters

to be Tried

ITALIAN SENSATION By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. (Received December 1, 10.25 p.m.) Rome, December 1. Another celebrated trial will shortly begin, when alleged murder plots, of which the intended victims were Signor Mussolini, his Holiness tiie Pope, and the King of Italy, will be instigated. The three accused are Aldo and Renato Cianca. and Leonardo Bucciglioni, who were arrested following the explosion at tiie Vatican last June. The police have discovered that it was intended to asphyxiate the Pope and the entire retinue of cardinals during a beatification' ceremony in the presence of 50,000 pilgrims, but the bomb proved relatively innocuous. The accused after the explosion allegedly fled to Paris.

Tiie explosion of a packet surreptitiously placed in the porch of St. Peter's in June last injured four persons, but caused no structural damage. The explosion made the third attempt to wreck St. Peter’s in two years. Happily, it only slightly injured the fabric, but two minutes before the explosion a thousand pilgrims filled the gateway where the bomb was placed. Thousands inside the church were panic-stricken and stampeded for the exits. The bomb was worked by clockwork.