Italy's interior minister said today an offshoot of the Red Brigades, an Italian urban guerilla movement that was active in the 1970s and 1980s, was responsible for the assassination of a government adviser.
The two men who gunned down economist Mr Marco Biagi, senior labour ministry aide, last night in front of his home in the city of Bologna even used the same gun that was used in a similar political killing three years before, Interior Minister Mr Claudio Scajola said.
"According to the first results, the gun is the same as that used in the D'Antona crime, which confirms the claim . . . that we are dealing with the Red Brigades for the Building of the Fighting Communist Party," he said.
The same organisation was behind the 1999 assassination of another senior Labour Ministry aide, Mr Massimo D'Antona. Its star-shaped signature was found scratched into the wall of Mr Biagi's house, next to the place where a stray bullet had hit.
A man claiming to represent the group telephoned a Bologna-based newspaper earlier today and said the group had carried out the killing.
Mr Biagi had helped Mr Berlusconi's centre-right government draft controversial new labour reforms. Bologna's prosecutor general earlier said he believed the murder was tied to the contested plans which are aimed at making it easier to hire and fire certain categories of workers.