By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writer

GENOA, Italy (AP) — His coffin draped in the red-and-gold banner of his beloved soccer team, the young protester shot by police during last week's riots at the G-8 summit was laid to rest Wednesday by thousands of mourners.

Carlo Guiliani, 23, was the first person killed in an anti-globalization protest since the movement began two years ago and the first to die in an Italian protest in 25 years. His death shocked Italy.

+In his short life, Carlo has given us many things,; his father, Giuliano Giuliani, said in a shaking voice. +Let's try, in Carlo's name, to be united, to refuse violence.;

At the family's request, there were no banners and virtually no flowers at the hour-long secular ceremony at the Staglieno cemetery on the outskirts of Genoa.

A few people attending wore T-shirts reading: +The killer's car: CC AE 217,; the license plate of the Carabinieri vehicle that ran over Giuliani's dead body after a policeman shot him Friday.

As the coffin was carried by friends through the crowd of about 1,000 people, applause erupted. Some people thrust forward their fists, others shouted Giuliani's name.

During the ceremony, one friend played guitar, another read a poem Guiliani liked. Mourners put bottles of beer and a black hood on the coffin that was covered by the flag of the Rome soccer team Giuliani supported, AS Roma.

Friends and relatives described Giuliani, who was born in Rome, as a fragile, generous, good-hearted man with a rebel spirit, tormented by the injustice he saw in the world.

Most called him +Carletto,; a nickname referring to his small size.

+In the end, we all want the same thing: A better world, or, at least a less disgusting one,; said the victim's father, an official with Italy's largest union. +But it takes time, patience and caution.;

+Carlo, you'll always be in out heart,; shouted one mourner as the body was buried at the cemetery.

+It shouldn't have happened, it's crazy to die like this,; said a tearful Elisabetta Boccia, a 19-year-old student who didn't known Giuliani but came to mourn his death.

Giuliani was killed Friday. Photos showed the man, hooded and approaching a jeep of the Carabinieri paramilitary police with a fire extinguisher lifted in his arms, and an officer inside pointing a gun in his direction. Subsequent pictures showed him prone on the ground, his body lying beneath the jeep.

Hours after the shooting, a makeshift shrine was created at the site. The name of the square, Piazza Gaetano Alimonda, was crossed off and now the sign reads, +Piazza Carlo Giuliani, a boy,; written in blue marker.

The gate of a church overlooking the square has been covered with flags, banners and T-shirts. Handwritten notes, bottles of beer, cigarettes, gas masks, candles and hundreds of other items are still scattered on the ground.

+It doesn't matter who he was. He was killed,; read one banner, while a white T-shirt on the gate read: +They have killed a boy in the square where I was born.;

The interior minister, Claudio Scajola, has said the policeman fired the shots in self-defense, without aiming, to protect himself from an attack +which was becoming a lynching.;

The policeman faces a possible manslaughter charge. The opposition has called for Scajola's resignation.

About 500 were injured and more than 200 arrested during the weekend riots at the Group of Eight summit. Damage to property has been estimated at 100 billion lire (dlrs 45 million).

(ar/vls/nvw)