Descendants of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini gathered Saturday for the funeral of his second son Vittorio and 70 men and women wearing black shirts gave his coffin a straight-arm fascist salute.
Vittorio, 81, was one of five children. He died Thursday in a Rome clinic after a long illness and will be buried in the family tomb at Predappio near Forli in central Italy Sunday.Around 700 people, including his wife Monica, son Guido and daughter Dindina Ciano, attended the funeral service in Rome's San Roberto Bellarmino church in the exclusive Parioli sector of the city.
His brother Romano, a jazz musician, was also present with his daughter Alessandra, 34, who represents the far-right National Alliance party in Italy's lower house of parliament, and other right-wing Italian politicians.
The group in black shirts, including some skinheads, sang fascist songs and shouted "Capt. Vittorio," giving the straight-arm salute as the coffin, which was escorted by six Italian airmen, passed at the start and end of the service.
The funeral was briefly interrupted by a middle-aged woman who shouted from the churchyard, "Assassins, you should be ashamed of yourselves." She was hurried off by police.
Vittorio was a lieutenant in the Italian air force and fought in the skies above Spain in 1936 and in World War II.
He emigrated to Argentina after the war but returned to Italy years later and published a book in 1957 called "Life with Father" in which he described the rise and fall of Mussolini, known as "Il Duce."
His brother Romano is the last of Mussolini's children left alive. Edda Mussolini Ciano, the eldest, died in April 1995, aged 85.
Edda, tragic favorite child of the Italian dictator, disavowed her father and renounced the family name after he refused to stop the execution of her husband Galeazzo Ciano by a firing squad in 1944.