DECOYED BY WOMAN

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 December 1928, Page 9

DECOYED BY WOMAN

SHARP FRONTIER TRICK. A diplomatic sensation has been caused by the dramatic arrest of one of Mussolini’s bitterest enemies, who is generally supposed to have murdered the Italian Socialist deputy Matteotti. The man is Cesare Rossi, who was one of the foremost of the Black Shirt lieutenants when the Fascist army marched on Rome in 1922. Rossi performed many deeds of Fascist valour; he is said to have been the originator of the, idea of dosing people with castor oil if they did .not at once declare their faith in Fascism. About the middle of 1924 the Socialist deputy Matteotti was giving the Fascist regime a great deal of trouble on account of his fearless criticisms of the Black Shirt dictatorship. Rossi gathered around him a number of desperadoes and they swore to put Matteotti out of the way. One June 4, while Matteotti was walking home through the streets of Rome he was seized, hustled into a motor-car and carried off. Weeks later his body was found. “Il Duce” had to do something to quell the rising tide of indignation throughout the country, and toward the end of June Rossi and his confederates went to prison.

From his cell Rossi, who had become a violent anti-Fascist, wrote a famous memorandum in which he declared that the Fascist regime was responsible for the murder. A considerable time after the Rossi gang was brought to what was really a mock trial. Rossi was sentenced, but granted an amnesty. When he came out of gaol he was a still more determined enemy of “Il Duce,” and lost no opportunity of making propaganda against his former chief. One day, Mussolini’s agents saw him in a cafe in Rome and heard him making remarks not quite complimentary to the Fascist chieftain. For that he was arrested. After completing his second term in prison he managed to escape from Italv to Switzerland, but Mussolini’s agents shadowed him everywhere, and now they have succeeded in luring him over the Italian frontier and locking him in prison. The agents-provocateurs made friends with him at Lugano, went for a walk with him, crossed the frontier with Rossi and put the handcuffs on him and his companion immediately they were on Italian territory. Rossi is now Mussolini’s prisoner in the gaol of Como.

According to one version he was lured across the Italian frontier by a woman (ostensibly an Italian tourist), who had been employed as decoy by the Fascists.

One evening, it is said, she persuaded Rossi to go for a walk with her as far as Campione, which is in an Italian enclave. There Rossi was pounced upon by the Italian police, arrested and placed in prison at Como. His daughter was also taken into custody.

The trick has caused a good deal of indignation in Switzerland, and it is likely that the Swiss Government will take diplomatic action in the matter.