Italian activist suspends hunger strike

PISTOLA, Italy, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Marco Pannella, historic leader of Italy's Radical Party, ended his 15-day hunger strike, he said, intended to call attention to overcrowded prisons.

Pannella, 82, accepted intravenous rehydration therapy last week after doctors advised him his life was in danger, but in an annual holiday visit told prison inmates in Pistola, Italy, he was "ready to resume if the state does not stop its flagrant criminal, Fascist, Nazi and totalitarian Communist" treatment of prisoners, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Wednesday.