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Hamas: Kidnapped Italian activist found dead in Gaza

Body of Vittorio Arigoni found in abandoned house, official says; 2 men arrested, others being sought; group had threatened to execute man.

Jerusalem Post:

By JPOST.COM STAFF AND REUTERS
04/15/2011 03:15

GAZA – Security officials found the body of an Italian man who had been abducted in the Gaza Strip in an abandoned house overnight Thursday, a Hamas security official said.

Two men were arrested and others were being sought.

In a You Tube clip the group posted online earlier Thursday, a Jihadist Salafi group in Gaza aligned with al Qaida had threatened to execute Italian rights activist Vittorio Arigoni by 17:00 local time (1400 GMT) unless their leader Hesham al-Sa’eedni, whom it detained last month, was freed.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the kidnapping and called for Arigoni’s “immediate release without conditions,” in a statement overnight Thursday.

“The move does not serve the justification of the Palestinian nation, but harms it,” Abbas added.

“If our demands are not met within 30 hours the captive will be executed when the period is over,” a text on the video clip said.

Arrigoni, an Italian pacifist and blogger, has lived in the Gaza Strip for some time. He was shown blindfolded with blood around his right eye and a hand can be seen pulling his head up by his hair to face the camera.

A spokesman for the Hamas interior ministry in Gaza City said it was investigating the abduction.

It was unclear when Arrigoni was kidnapped or where he was being held, but an Italian diplomat who serves in the region confirmed to Reuters he had been abducted.

The Arabic text that accompanied the footage of Arrigoni also said “the Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption” and it described Italy as “the infidel state”.

Arrigoni, an Italian pacifist and blogger, has lived in the Gaza Strip for some time. He was shown blindfolded with blood around his right eye and a hand can be seen pulling his head up by his hair to face the camera.

A spokesman for the Hamas interior ministry in Gaza City said it was investigating the abduction.

It was unclear when Arrigoni was kidnapped or where he was being held, but an Italian diplomat who serves in the region confirmed to Reuters he had been abducted.

The Arabic text that accompanied the footage of Arrigoni also said “the Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption” and it described Italy as “the infidel state”.

7 Responses

  1. And he loved Muslims so much too. ‘Live and learn’ I guess….. or perhaps, ‘pay the price for your stupidity’ would fit better here.

  2. However tragic, this man’s death is also a wild farce: devoting his life to serve terrorists, only to be murdered by the terrorists’ terrorists. The recent Gazan murder of Israeli actor/activist Juliano Mer-Khamis is another case in point.

  3. Sadly this mans murder will do nothing to dampen the passionate love affair between the lunatic left and radical Islam.

    1. Moshe you’ve hit one something, but I’ll take it one more step, if the guy had been killed by an IDF soldier, then it really really would be all over the news.

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