Churchill 'ordered killing of Mussolini'

By PETER POPHAM

ROME - Benito Mussolini was not killed by Italian partisans but by secret agents acting on orders from Winston Churchill. That is the conclusion of a new inquiry into the death of Il Duce.

Britain's wartime leader was desperate, an Italian documentary claims, to prevent secret letters coming to light in which he had tried to induce Italy to make a separate peace with the Allies. This was in defiance of his accord with President Franklin Roosevelt that the war could end only with the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers.

The programme, co-produced by a US journalist, Peter Tompkins, alleges it was to prevent these letters coming to light that Churchill ordered the murder of Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci.

The film's credibility hinges on the evidence of former Italian partisan Bruno Lonati, who says he was one of the two-man team given the task of killing the couple. The history books say Mussolini and Petacci were executed by partisans at the gates of a villa near Lake Como at 4.10pm on April 28, 1945. Later their corpses were exhibited hanging upside down in a piazza in Milan.

But according to Lonati, the secret assassination actually took place more than five hours earlier. He claims that he acted in tandem with a British Special Operations Executive agent codenamed Captain John, a Briton of Sicilian descent, real name Robert Maccarone, who had been sent to Italy with the specific mission of eliminating Mussolini.

Lonati says that they went to the house near Lake Como where the couple had been held since their arrest, escorted them down a lane that led to the lake, stood them against a fence and opened fire with Sten guns. Lonati claims the British agent then photographed them with the Italian beside them. "Captain John" also referred to "very important documents" that he was ordered to retrieve from Mussolini.

Lonati first advanced his claims to be Mussolini's assassin more than 10 years ago. He found few takers for the story. Tompkins, who was himself a secret agent, insists the account checks out. But a key piece of evidence - the photo of Lonati with the bodies - is missing.

- INDEPENDENT