Venezuela's Chavez criticises protester death

The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, has criticised the killing of a protester at the Group of Eight summit in Italy, and called…

The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, has criticised the killing of a protester at the Group of Eight summit in Italy, and called on Western leaders to heed anti-capitalist demonstrators.

Chavez said he had learned with sadness of the fatal shooting of Carlo Giuliani, 23, by Italian police amid violent demonstrations during a meeting of the heads of world's industrialized nations in the Mediterranean port of Genoa.

One has to criticize the response (of authorities); the answer cannot be police and death, said Chavez, an outspoken former paratrooper who has emerged as a standard bearer for the left in Latin America.

I believe we have to listen to these people (demonstrators), Chavez said at the inauguration of a hydro-electric dam in southeastern Venezuela. These meetings do not even consider the problems of world poverty and the destruction of the environment.