GIULIANI AND GAGGIO v. ITALY JUDGMENT 23 have been justified under Article 53 of the CC, as it was legitimate to fire in the direction of assailants in order to halt an attack while endeavouring to limit the damage, for instance by avoiding vital organs. In conclusion, the use of a firearm had been justified and had been likely not to cause serious harm, given that M.P. had “certainly fired upwards” and that the bullet had struck Carlo Giuliani only because it had been deflected in a manner that could not have been foreseen. 6. Whether M.P. acted in self-defence (Article 52 of the CC) 99. The investigating judge next considered it necessary to determine whether M.P. had acted in self-defence, which was a “more stringent” test for exemption from responsibility. She took the view that M.P. had rightly perceived a threat to his physical integrity and that of his colleagues, and that the threat had persisted on account of the violent attack on the jeep by a crowd of assailants and not just by Carlo Giuliani. In order to be assessed in its proper context, M.P.'s response had to be viewed in relation to that attack. The investigating judge rejected the hypothesis advanced by the victim's family that M.P.'s head injuries had been caused by the internal lever of the flashing light on the jeep's roof rather than by stones thrown by demonstrators. 100. M.P.'s response had been necessary in view of the number of assailants, the means used, the sustained nature of the violence, the injuries to the carabinieri in the jeep and the vehicle's difficulty in leaving the square because the engine had stalled. The response had been appropriate given the level of violence. 101. Had M.P. not taken out his weapon and fired two shots, the attack would have continued. If the fire extinguisher – which M.P. had already kicked away once – had landed in the jeep, it would have caused serious injury, or worse, to the occupants. As to the relationship of proportionality between the attack and the response, the Court of Cassation had held that the interests under threat had to be weighed against the means available to the accused, and that a plea of self-defence might be allowed even if the harm to the assailant was slightly greater than the threatened harm to the accused (see Court of Cassation, First Section, judgment no. 08204 of 13 April 1987, Catania). Furthermore, the response had to be the only one possible in the circumstances, in the sense that other responses less damaging to the assailant would not suffice to counter the danger (see Court of Cassation, First Section, judgment no. 02554 of 1 December 1995, P.M. and Vellino). Where a firearm was the only means of defence available to the person under attack, its use should be confined to displaying the person's resolve to make use of it, firing into the air or onto the ground or firing in the direction of the assailant but taking care not to hit vital organs, so as to inflict injury but not kill (see Court of Cassation judgment of 20 September 1982, Tosani).