An Italian man killed two African street sellers and wounded three others in an apparent racist shooting spree in the heart of Florence on Tuesday before committing suicide, police said.
Gianluca Casseri, 50, who Italian officials said was a rightwing extremist, parked his car in the northern Dalmazia square at lunch time, got out and started shooting with a pistol, witnesses said.
Two Senegalese men were killed and one seriously injured.
After the shooting, he got back in his car and drove away before opening fire again about two hours later in the central San Lorenzo market, wounding two more African street sellers.
The market is one of the Renaissance city’s most famous, and is usually packed with tourists because of its location halfway between the magnificent domed cathedral and the train station.
Afterward, Mr Casseri fled to a parking garage, got in his car and shot himself in the throat, police said.
Mr Casseri was an author and publisher of a magazine dedicated to fans of J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Police said Casseri, from the town of Pistoia in Tuscany, had links to a far-Right, anti-immigration movement called Casa Pound.
