A runaway killer on Saturday brought terror to one of Rome’s most popular tourist spots before being fatally wounded in a shoot-out that brought a mother close to being killed in front of her children.
The extraordinary scene was played out near the Colosseum where on Saturday night thousands of people had been expected to gather for the farewell concert of Simon and Garfunkel’s European tour.
Luciano Liboni, nicknamed ”The Wolf”, had been Italy’s most wanted man since murdering an officer of the paramilitary Carabinieri on July 22. Since last week, when he was involved in another shoot-out in Rome, the capital has been alive with frightened speculation about his whereabouts.
He was finally spotted on Saturday by two unarmed municipal policemen near the Temple of Vesta, the circular temple by the banks of the Tiber. A Roman woman, walking near Piazza Venezia, had told them a few minutes earlier she thought she had recognised Liboni heading toward Circus Maximus, a grassy field where the ancient Romans ran chariot races.
They followed him down one side of the Circus Maximus to near the headquarters of the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organisation where they alerted two Carabinieri motorcycle patrol officers.
As the policemen approached Liboni, the fugitive shot at them, grabbed a passing Frenchwoman who was holidaying in Rome with her husband and three children and put a gun to her head. As one of the Carabinieri laid down his weapon, the other got to a tree behind the fugitive from which he shot him in the head.
Liboni was taken to hospital but died in the operating theatre.
”Our man fired at Liboni, the lady instinctively dropped to the ground,” Major Attilio Auricchio of the Carabinieri said. ”Her husband feared for his wife’s life, but she got up right away, running toward her children.”
He said Liboni fired five shots from his revolver at police near the subway entrance, and one of the two motorcycle police who had cornered him fired three shots at the fugitive.
According to some accounts, he was a man who felt he had nothing to lose, having learnt that he was suffering from Aids. A loner with a long history of petty crime, the bald-headed Liboni turned killer during a routine document check at a bar near Italy’s Adriatic coast.
Police said he killed Alessandro Giorgioni, aged 36, with two shots from a .38 revolver.
The first was to the neck, but the second was allegedly fired into the helpless officer’s heart as he lay on the ground. A manhunt started across central Italy but Liboni, riding a stolen motorcycle, succeeded in evading his pursuers until a week ago when he was spotted near Rome’s main railway station.
When challenged, he pulled a pistol and fired two shots before hijacking a passing car. A couple of hundred yards on, ”The Wolf” jumped out and vanished down the stairs of the Metro on the way to what was to be his final violent escapade.
Liboni’s ability to strike and flee earned him the nickname ”The Wolf”. He had been on the run for two years. Before killing the policeman, he had been wanted for other shootings, and had a record of robberies. — Guardian Unlimited Â