ABSTRACT: Andrea Tamburi, who died last 27 February, was possibly the victim of an attack: the findings of the autopsy contradict the version given by the Moscow authorities. The legal authority in Florence is investigating the suspect death of a citizen of Florence in Moscow. The wounds on the body are not compatible with the hypothesis that he was run over by a car. Tamburi had cashed $3.000, and there were only 1.000 on him when he was found dead.

Perhaps he was the victim of an attack, a beating, perhaps a robbery, not a road accident in a street of the centre of Moscow, as the Russian authorities declared. The death of Andrea Tamburi, 46, coordinator of the radical party's activities for Eastern Europe and who died at the "Skifasovski" hospital last 27 February, remains a mystery. The judicial authorities of Florence have officially decided to shed full light on the matter. ON the basis of the results of the autopsy on Tamburi's body, carried out by the institute of forensic medicine of Florence, the attorney Bruno Maresca has decided to open an investigation, advancing the hypothesis of manslaughter. The autopsy ruled out the possibility that the wounds on the body of the radical who had been living in Russia for the past two years are compatible with the ones caused by a road accident.

According to the doctors of the institute of forensics medicine it is far more likely that Tamburi was beaten to death. The first who raised doubts on Tamburi's death were his party colleagues.

None of them believed the official version provided by the Moscow authorities on the accident, i.e. that Tamburi had been run over by a car and that his body was tossed 12 metres away in the clash in the night between 23 and 34 February in the centre of Moscow, and died in hospital three days later.

The radicals had raised objections also on the medical assistance given to their colleague in the Muscovite hospital, where Tamburi received no surgical treatment.

Equally suspect is the fact that no one warned the Italian authorities that the radical militant had been hospitalized (the notification was made only after his death). Also, the friends of the radical exponent who had looked for him after he disappeared in various hospitals, including the "Skifasovski", were told that he was not there.

Thus, the radical party, of which Tamburi was a federal councillor and a member of the secretariat, had convinced his mother, Fatma Giovannelli to ask and obtain from the judicial authorities the authorization to carry out an autopsy in Italy. According to the first examinations carried out at the institute of forensic medicine, the death had been ascribed to a bronchopneumonia cased by encephalitic wounds caused by a fall. But the traumas found on the body are not compatible with the hypothesis of a car accident.

The doubts concerned in particular the wounds at the knees: two slight if his body had been projected 12 metres away. Also, Tamburi's clothes were too clean and in too good condition.

For these reasons the attorney Maresca opened a series of preliminary investigations, gathering the testimonies of Tamburi's friends and colleagues, both Italian and Muscovite, some of whom advanced a political motive to explain the death.

The most probably hypothesis according to Vincenzo Donvito, the head of the Tuscan radicals and a friend of Tamburi's, is that he was robbed.

"Tamburi" - explains Donvito - "had received $3,000 a few days before he died. Only 1.000 were found in his house. I can't believe he spent the rest in such a short time".