Red Brigades convict hangs herself in prison

Diana Blefari Melazzi was found hanged in her cell at Rebibbia women's prison in Rome.

A member of Italy's far-left new Red Brigades serving a life sentence for murdering a government adviser has killed herself in prison, the ANSA news agency reported Sunday.

Diana Blefari Melazzi was found hanged in her cell at Rebibbia women's prison in Rome.

Last week Italy's highest appeal court upheld the life sentence handed down to her for the murder of employment law expert Marco Biagi in March 2002.

Three others were also jailed for life for their part in the attack.

Responsibility for the murder was claimed by the Red Brigades for a Fighting Communist Party, a group calling itself the continuation of the original Red Brigades.

The Red Brigades emerged in the 1970s seeking to create a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist state through armed struggle and were responsible for a number of murders.

Among their most notorious actions was the kidnapping and murder of Italy's former Christian Democrat prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978.