Witch Hunt

Fascism's most spectacular Special Tribunal in years assembled in Trieste last week. Its purpose: to frighten Italians out of sabotage, insurrection and anti-Fascist activities. The presiding judge: Lieut. General Antonino Tringali-Casanuova. The "criminals": students, antiFascists, Slovene nationalists, Communists. The crimes: a plot against Mussolini's life at Caporetto in 1938; the blowing up of three powder factories in 1940; an attempt to establish a Soviet regime embracing the old Yugoslavia.

Chief scapegoat was a youthful Triestino named Antonio Skuka. Judge Tringali-Casanuova made no bones about the fact that the trial was a witch hunt. Because Italian law holds prisoners guilty until they are proved innocent, it was his job to see they were not proved innocent. According to Giornale d'ltalia, "the ability of the President [Tringali-Casanuova] who questioned him [Skuka] rigorously made him [Skuka] contradict himself."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.