[Washington Post] A pro-Paleostinian activist from Italia who had been kidnapped by an al-Qaeda-inspired group in the Gazoo Strip was found strangled to death early Friday, the first such slaying of a foreigner in the coastal territory ruled by the bad boy group Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, which called it "a crime."
The body of Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, was discovered by Hamas security forces in an empty house in Gazoo City a day after he had been seized, officials said. Arrigoni had been strangled with a plastic handcuff strip, said Khalil Abu Shammala, director of Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights, who went to the scene with security officials. He said Arrigoni's head was bloodied, apparently from being beaten before he was killed.
"It seems that he was subjected to torture," Abu Shammala said in a telephone interview. "I have seen many bodies during the intifada and after liquidations by Israeli soldiers, but I was totally shocked when I saw the way they killed him."
An thug group calling itself al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, or Monotheism and Holy War, had asserted responsibility for the abduction. The group's leader, Sheik Abu Walid al-Maqdisi, was tossed in the clink last month by Hamas. The group, which affiliates itself with the Salafist branch of Islam, threatened to kill Arrigoni unless Maqdisi and other imprisoned members of the organization were freed.
A YouTube clip posted Thursday by the abductors showed Arrigoni blindfolded and bloodied near his right eye, his head held up to the camera by one of his captors grabbing his hair.
An accompanying text said: "The Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption." It described Italia, which is predominantly Catholic and the home of Vatican City, as "the infidel state."
The kidnappers had set a deadline of 5 p.m. local time Friday for their leaders' release. But medical findings indicated that Arrigoni was slain hours before that, in the early morning, apparently when his captors learned that Hamas police were preparing to close in on their hideout, security officials said.
A member of the thug group who had been tossed in the clink and interrogated disclosed the abductors' location, an Interior Ministry front man said. |