http://www.smh.com.au/news/0107/22/world/world2.html

The police officer who shot dead a young Italian protester during demonstrations against a Group of Eight summit was charged with murder, the prosecutor's office said yesterday.

A second policeman is under investigation but a decision on an indictment will be delayed until after a post-mortem.

Carlo Giuliani, 23, died after being shot during protests on Friday.

The Interior Ministry said initial inquiries showed Giuliani had been shot by an injured officer whose vehicle was cornered by demonstrators.

Witnesses said the vehicle drove over the protester's body twice with the second officer at the wheel.

Shocked by the death of the anti-capitalist protester, G8 leaders resumed their summit meeting in Italy yesterday as tens of thousands of demonstrators began to return to the streets.

The G8 leaders appealed for calm after the death, believed to be the first in nearly two years of violent anti-globalisation protests at international gatherings around the world.

The leaders - from the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada - were turning their attention yesterday to world poverty and the environment, issues that top the agenda of some protest groups in Genoa.

Meeting behind battlements of fencing and concrete-filled shipping containers, the leaders were also due to discuss world trouble spots.

The most intense discussion was likely to be about the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

G8 foreign ministers last week described mounting Middle East violence as alarming and called on both sides to accept outside monitors to help implement a peace plan.

The leaders reached an upbeat consensus on the world economy in their first day of talks.

They interrupted their Friday evening banquet to issue an appeal for calm after the death of Genoa resident Giuliani, the son of a union official.

"We would like to condemn most strongly any form of violence and we appeal to all who are demonstrating peacefully ... through their example to isolate the troublemakers," they said.

Catholic aid agency Cafod said it had told its supporters not to take part in a march against debt yesterday.

"We represent the millions of people who have no voice. That is no longer possible under these circumstances," Cafod head of campaigns Fleur Anderson said.

Italian Interior Minister Claudio Scajola, who described the death of the protester as "a tragic event", urged protesters not to aggravate tension and add to the burden on security forces.

He suggested the policeman who fired the fatal shots had feared for his life after protesters had already wounded several of his colleagues.

Italian television said magistrates had been to the hospital where the policeman was being treated and questioned him over the incident as their inquiry got under way.

The report said Giulani had been a member of an anarchist group called "The Black Bloc".

Police said 184 people were injured in all - 60 members of the security forces, 114 demonstrators and 10 journalists.


The violence on Friday also overshadowed the launch of a global war chest to help fund the fight against AIDS.

But even promises by the rich industrialised nations, plus Russia, to give cash amounting to more than $US1.2billion ($2.34billion) did not satisfy AIDS activists because the pledges fell far short of the United Nations target for 2001 of nearly 10 times that amount.