3 killed, 2 injured in Milan courthouse shootout

Three people were killed and another two were injured when the defendant opened fire during a hearing in Milan's courthouse on Thursday, local reports said.

A bankruptcy judge, Fernando Ciampi, and a young lawyer, Lorenzo Alberto Claris Appiani, were among the victims, according to court sources quoted by ANSA news agency.

The accused, an entrepreneur named Claudio Giardiello, 57, was arrested later by police some 20 km away from the Milan's courthouse while trying to flee the scene on a motorbike, Rai State television said.

Two injured people, of whom one was reportedly seriously wounded, were rushed to hospital.

"I was outside a courtroom on third floor and I heard the gunshots. I saw a young man who had been shot to death and later two others lying on the floor," a lawyer told Rai.

"He used to be a client of mine, but I gave up on him because he was an over-the-top person," Giardiello's former lawyer commented on the shootout.

"Understanding how it was that a man armed with a gun was able to enter the courthouse will be a very serious issue," a columnist of Milan-based Corriere della Sera newspaper, Giuseppe Guastella, told Xinhua.

"There are seven passages in the courthouse, of which three are equipped with metal detectors," Guastella said.

He explained to Xinhua, however, that judges and lawyers are allowed to enter the courthouse without passing through the metal detectors.

Hundreds of courthouse workers, journalists and passers-by gathered outside the courthouse, which is located in a central area of the northern Italian city where the next world exposition will kick off on May 1. Endit