Mattarella commemorates victims of Ardeatine massacre

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 24 - President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella paid tribute Friday to the victims of the WWII Ardeatine Caves massacre outside Rome on the 79th anniversary of the killings.
    Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, Lower House and Senate speakers Lorenzo Fontana and Ignazio La Russa and Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri also attended the commemoration.
    Mattarella laid a laurel wreath at the site on Rome's southern outskirts where on March 24, 1944, 335 Italians were executed by Nazi officers in a reprisal for a partisan attack that killed 33 German soldiers in central Rome on a street near the Trevi Fountain.
    In retaliation, for every one German killed, the army seized 10 Italians including civilians as well as numerous political prisoners and Jews who were in custody, plus five more who were also executed.
    Both men and boys were executed and their bodies dumped in the caves where the memorial is now located. (ANSA).