68 years after the hanging of Carmelo Borg Pisani, a group of Italian activists from the neo-fascist NGO Nucleo Identitario Sociale, based in west Rome, organised a demonstration outside the Maltese embassy on Lungotevere Marzio, to mark his death and heroism.

The group turned up at the Maltese embassy to deliver a bottle of wine bearing the image of Borg Pisani.

Their demonstration was a symbolic provocation to request that a plaque be erected at the place where Borg Pisani’s remains lie, they said on their Facebook page.

”In the 68th year after his death, the NIS militants intend to request the placing of a plaque at the place where lie the remains of this anonymous hero, captured and later hanged by the British on 28 November,” they said, with accompanying pictures of the demonstration.

During the demonstration, a long poster reading “Carmelo Borg Pisani Presente!” was stuck on the wall overlooking the Tiber River, which flows behind the Maltese embassy.

In 1942, Borg Pisani was found guilty of treason, a crime punishable by death. He was eventually hanged at Corradino Civil Prisons on 28 November.

The Italian government had posthumously honoured Borg Pisani with the highest award for bravery, the Medaglia d’Oro al Valore Militare.

He was considered as hardworking and loved art and all that is Italian passionately, not only because Italy was the cradle of art but also because, like many other Maltese at the time, he believed that Malta belonged to Italy both ethnically and culturally and that ‘Protestant England’ had no right to rule over ‘Catholic Malta’.

The Roman art academy where he had studied was rechristened La Regia Accademia di Belle Arti Borg Pisani and a street in Turin was named after him.

Born in Senglea, Carmelo Borg Pisani studied at Umberto Primo School in Valletta, but at the age of 21 he went to Italy on an Italian government scholarship to study art and design at the Regia Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome.

He eventually joined the Italian armed forces in 1941 and was chosen to take part in a spying mission to Malta. Borg Pisani landed in Ras id-Dawwara, on the North West coast, where a Royal Air Force boat rescued him. After he was given assistance, he was identified as Borg Pisani and gave himself up to the Maltese authorities. He was hanged six months later.