Italy’s LOAC Elementary Rules Manual (1991) provides: “Search for information in uniform or without disguise concealing combatant status is legitimate. Spies may be used but they do not have the right to prisoner-of-war treatment.” 

Italy’s Wartime Military Penal Code (1941) punishes any “commander who, with the exception of the cases of imminent danger for the security of the armed force or for the military defence of the State, orders that, without prior regular judgment, a person caught in the act of spying shall be immediately executed”.