(ANSA) - Rome, November 25 - Investigators believe a jeweller who shot dead a robber at his home in the province of Milan late on Tuesday acted "within the realm of self-defence", ANSA sources said on Wednesday. The dead man, 37-year-old Albanian Valentin Frrokaj, was a fugitive murder convict and considered extremely dangerous. He was part of a gang of three that attacked Rodolfo Corazzo outside his home in Rodano after he returned from work at his store in Milan and forced him to open the door, according to initial reconstructions. "I did it all to defend my family, my daughter, my wife," a clearly shaken Corazzo, 59, told reporters in the office of his lawyer on Wednesday.

"I did not intend to kill but to send them packing.

"Thank God I had a weapon on me. If I had not been armed, I'm certain they would have killed us". The two other bandits are on the run and a manhunt is on for them throughout northern Italy. They could be armed as one of the guns that Corazzo owns, and has permits for, a Smith&Wesson 357 Magnum, is missing.

Colazzo said the three spoke Italian with foreign accents.

Frrokaj was sentenced to life in prison for stabbing to death a fellow Albanian in July 2007 in Brescia.

He escaped with a compatriot from prison in Parma in February 2013, but was tracked down by Carabinieri, packing a loaded Beretta gun, in August that year.

He made a second prison break from a jail in Palermo in May 2014 - reportedly using the traditional method of cutting through the bars and tying sheets into a rope to climb down from the cell. The gang he was part of is said to have hit Corazzo from behind, forced him to shut down his two-storey home's closed-circuit video system and let them in.

They then forced him to open two safes in his house, emptying them of valuables, after which a shootout took place. Frrokaj was hit in the chest and is thought to have died immediately. "I'd given them everything," Corazzo said. "I didn't have anything in the house but they insisted, threatening me and they even tried to intimidate my 11-year-old daughter, taking her upstairs and saying they'd cut off her finger if I didn't say where the money was.

"They kept us there, threatening us with guns, for an hour and a half. "They came up to my face with a knife too, saying if you don't says where the money is we'll cut all three of you open.

"At the stage, I no longer hesitated. As soon as they gave me a chance, I took out my gun.

"They fired six shots with a gun that I had in the safe. "I fired only three. The first two didn't hit anything.

The third hit one of them, but I didn't aim". Corazzo said he had the gun he used inside his jacket, adding that he needed it due to his job. The case comes after a furore last month when a pensioner was put under investigation for manslaughter after shooting dead an intruder at his home. "A shopkeeper shot and killed a thief after being attacked by robbers as he returned from home and sent the others packing," Matteo Salvini, the leader of the right-wing Northern League, said on his Facebook page.

"He defended himself, he did the right thing! I'm sorry for the dead thief, but he had it coming". Later, Salvini added: "it was - extremely legitimate self defence - I read that the dead man was a fugitive Albanian lifer, convicted of many crimes. "Humanity has taken a step forward. We won't miss him".

He also won the support of Giovanni Petrali, a tobacconist from the Milan area who killed a robber and injured another in 2003. "He did the right thing," said Petrali.

"I went through nine and a half years of trials, but I'd do it again. It was the third robbery and what else should we do? Offer them a coffee?"