On 1 September 1930, the Fascist Special Court was convened in the city of Trieste with the aim of initiating a maxi trial against various figures from Slavic nationalist movements (such as TIGR), which at the time were operating in the territory administered by Italy. The sentence was handed down just five days after the start of the trial, on 6 September, and was immediately carried out with the execution by firing squad of four nationalists, Fran Marusic, Zvonimir Milos, Alojz Valencic and Ferdo Bidovec, for multiple convictions against them. These terrorist nationalist associations were known to the Italian population, which had carried out anti-Slavic activities in previous years, such as the burning of the Hotel Balkan.

The Basovizza firing range was chosen as the place where the four condemned men were to be shot, and in 1945 it became a symbol of Slavic resistance to Italian occupation. The comrades of the men who had been shot soon took their revenge on the men of the regime. On 4 October, an elementary school teacher named Francesco Sottosanti was shot in front of his home. The 6 October edition of La Stampa clearly and accurately reconstructed the events, describing the man returning home in the evening by bicycle after finishing his shift. Waiting for him were his wife and five children. In fact, it was his wife who saw the three shots fired at her husband's back from the window of their home and was the first to come to his aid.

Here, fascist and Slavic nationalist propaganda distort perceptions of reality. For the Slavs, the teacher was a brutal and authoritarian man suffering from tuberculosis who spat in the mouths of children who dared to speak Slavic, while for fascist propaganda he was an inexhaustible and dutiful primary school teacher, respected by pupils and parents alike.

From this understandable difference in opinion regarding the interpretation of the murder, the true motive behind it is revealed. Sottosanti Francesco had a brother named Ugo, a well-known fascist fanatic who worked in the same profession. Francesco had recently taken his brother's place at the primary school in Vipacco, near Gorizia, and it was his brother who was guilty of the allegations of abuse against Slavic students. In this way, Francesco Sottosanti, guilty only of having a brother named Ugo with questionable moral values, entered the cycle of violence and murder in the extremely violent and politically exacerbated Venezia Giulia of the Fascist era.