Mussolini reburial document on eBay
Brain not stolen, hospital says
20 November, 14:49
(see previous story on site).
(ANSA) - Rome, November 20 - A photocopy of a document
recording the handover of Benito Mussolini's body to his family
in 1957 is on sale on eBay's Italian site for five euros,
sources said after his granddaughter claimed his brain was on
sale.The document registered the Italian State's consignment of the body to his widow Rachele at his birthplace Predappio where it was re-interred that year.
It also certified that the ex-dictator's brain was handed over separately.
Rachele Mussolini placed the brain over the tomb which is visited by thousands of admirers each year.
The body was originally buried in an unmarked grave near Milan after Mussolini's execution by partisans in 1943.
It was discovered and dug up by neo-Fascists in 1946, recovered several months later, and kept in secret for a decade while authorities tried to decide what to do with it. Earlier, rightwing MP Alessandra Mussolini said part of her grandfather's brain, as well as samples of his blood, had been stolen from a Milan hospital and were on sale on eBay.
But the Policlinico hospital said its autopsy samples from Mussolini's body were destroyed two years after his death.
The body was taken to the Policlinico after it was strung up by the partisans with that of his mistress Claretta Petacci in a Milan square. Mussolini memorabilia are highly sought-after by collectors in Italy and abroad.
