Slaying of thief fuels debate:

Europe

Italian opposition politicians from the far right populist parties and other conservative forces on Sunday demanded a new law quickly on legitimate defense to protect law-abiding citizens.

The debate was fueled after a restaurant owner was put under investigation for allegedly fatally shooting a thief in the back during a middle-of-the-night break-in at the eatery.

The owner, Mario Cattaneo, 67, and his family live above the restaurant in Gugnano, near Lodi, northern Italy.

When noise awakened the family early Friday, the restaurateur grabbed a loaded hunting rifle and, according to some accounts given by the man and his adult son, fired toward a courtyard through a rear-entrance barricade erected by the thieves. In other Italian media accounts, the owner was quoted as saying the rifle fired accidentally when the thieves yanked the barrel of the rifle and he fell. In still another version, the Italian news agency ANSA on Sunday quoted Cattaneo as saying one of the thieves grabbed his arm and tried to pull away the rifle.

When the restaurant re-opened for business Sunday, Cattaneo showed journalists bruises on his arm he said was caused by a thief.

The victim, a Romanian man, was fatally shot near a back shoulder blade. The other thieves fled, leaving behind cigarette cartons allegedly stolen from the trattoria’s bar area.

“I’m deeply sorry for what happened. I thought the criminals had already gone away,” ANSA quoted the owner as saying Sunday.

Opposition politicians championed the restaurateur’s cause.

“I’m on Mario’s side,” Mariastella Gelmini, a leader in former Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative-leaning Forza Italia Party, wrote on Facebook.

Gelmini challenged the ruling Democratic Party to speed-up the timetable on a