FRANCO-ITALIAN STRAIN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 531, 7 December 1928, Page 9

FRANCO-ITALIAN STRAIN

NARDINI ASSASSINATION GRANT MADE TO WIDOW Times Cable. LONDON, Thursday. A message from Rome says the Italian Government has voted to the widow of Count Carlo Nardini, late Italian Vice-Consul at Paris, who was assassinated by Carlos Modugno, a special grant of £IOO a year, in addition to the allowance to which she is ordinarily entitled. The Rome correspondent of “The Times” says an official communique on the subject of the pension states: “A barbarous assassin struck down not merely an upright official, but a loyal supporter of the Fascist regime.” Apparently the newspaper campaign for the return of all French decorations is semi-officially discouraged, but the terms of this announcement are not calculated to improve the relations between France and Italy. The newspaper “Impero” continues to urge the return of civil decorations to France, because it says they arc undesirable rewards for an undesirable regime. It says military decorations should be kept, not because they prove any special benevolence on the part of France, “but because they prove our generosity in shedding our own blood for the .salvation of a foreign country which was not deserving of such a sacrifice.”

The French jury at the trial of Carlo Modugno returned a verdict of manslaughter and accused was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 200 francs was imposed upon him. The verdict and the lightness of the sentence aroused a storm of protest in Italy.