INGLORIOUS END

Evening Star, Issue 25472, 1 May 1945, Page 5

INGLORIOUS END

v BODY KICKED AND SPAT ON LONDON, April 30. " I saw the bodies of Mussolini- and others lying in the Plaza Loreto, Milan, while 25,000 hysterical people fought for a chance to kick him or spit on him," states the ' Daily Express ' Milan correspondent. "The bodies were thrown from a lorry on to a patch of grass and lay as they fell. Across Mussolini's legs was the body of his mistress, Clara Petacci. Mussolini in death looked very small, thin, and waxlike. There was still an arrogant look on his pinched face. He wore a Fascist uniform, but so many people had mangled the body that it was impossible to recognise the colour.

" The whole of the square, which is larger than London's Trafalgar Square, was crammed with humanity, screaming, shouting, and fighting. Nine armed Communist partisans under orders- to protect me cleared enough space for me to look down at the battered, bruised, blood-stained body of the once proud dictator. There were no ropes around the dead, and I was swept irresistibly forward and thrown on to Mussolini's body. Partisans were firing into the air, bullets falling around. Ido not know if anyone was killed by them, but I saw dozens fainting and being trampled on. Firemen were called out to play hoses on the mob so that I could take photographs. The crowded onlookers were drenched, and'the bodies were soaked, too." 'The correspondent states that Mussolini was killed by partisan guards on the journey from Como to Milan after the escort bringing him to Milan had left Como. Partisans who had helped to free the city from which Mussolini began his march against Rome in 1922 fired bullets into him with an expression of fiendish hate on their faces'. When the bodies reached Milan they were thrown on the spot where 14 partisans were massacred by Fascists last year. Now the ex-dictator was exposed there as a gift offering to the dead, while the citizens of suffering Milan heaped the vilest insults upon him.

The war correspondents of ' The Times ' and the ' News Chronicle ' also report seeing the bodies of Mussolini and others lving in Loreto Square, Milan.

'..The Times ' correspondent states that the partisan commander-in-chief, Cadorna, describes such incidents in themselves as regrettable. Nevertheless in this_ case it was considered that the execution was a good thing, since popular indignation against the Fascists demanded some satisfaction, and the risk of a protracted trial such as those held in Rome was thus avoided. The Como correspondent of the Associated Press sends a story by an eyewitness, who says that as the car rolled along the main road near Lake Como two commissars of the Communist brigade recognised Mussolini, forced him to halt, and arrested him. He was taken to Como Prison, where lie was held for some hours during a dispute regarding_ custody. 'Commissioners for sanctions against the Fascists in Rome demanded that he be brought before the High Court of Justice according to regular procedure. On the other band the Liberation Committee in Milan urged his immediate transfer to Milan for judgment by the People's Tribunal. The partisans, however, with the Duce in their hands, 1-enonneed judicial procedure, and went directly to the final act.

The eye-witness said Mussolini was shot with his back to the firing corps. His body and others were transported to Milan in 20 lorries during the night.