15 April 2011 Last updated at 07:14 GMT
Italian activist found dead in Gaza after abduction
Image from video showing Vittorio Arrigoni after his capture Vittorio Arrigoni
was kidnapped on Thursday morning
An Italian pro-Palestinian activist has been found dead in the Hamas-governed
Gaza Strip hours after being abducted.
Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, was seized on Thursday by a radical group that has been
in conflict with Hamas and is seeking the release of its leader.
Police said he was found hanged in a Gaza City house after receiving a tip-off.
Two people have been arrested.
Italy denounced the "barbaric murder", calling it an "act of vile and senseless
violence".
Mr Arrigoni was the first foreigner kidnapped in Gaza since BBC journalist Alan
Johnston was abducted in 2007.
Friends of the activist gathered outside the hospital where his body had been
taken on Friday morning.
"He came from across the world, left his country and family and his entire life
and came here to break the siege, and we kill him? Why?" asked one of his
friends.
YouTube video
File photo of Vittorio Arrigoni holding aid at Gaza seaport in October 2008
Vittorio Arrigoni was a pro-Palestinian activist who had been in Gaza for
several years
Vittorio Arrigoni was seized by Salafist radicals, an Islamist movement itself
that considers Hamas as too moderate, BBC Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison says.
The Salafists had threatened to execute Mr Arrigoni by 1400 GMT on Friday
unless several prisoners, including their leader, Sheikh Abu Walid al-Maqdasi,
were released. Sheikh Maqdasi was arrested by Hamas police last month in Gaza
City.
In a video posted on YouTube, Mr Arrigoni appeared to have been beaten and his
eyes were covered with thick black tape.
A caption on the video read: "The Italian hostage entered our land only to
spread corruption." The video called Italy "the infidel state".
It is not clear why Mr Arrigoni was killed before the given deadline, but the
Hamas interior ministry said he had died soon after being abducted.
Ministry spokesman Ehab al-Ghussein said he was killed "in an awful way".
Continue reading the main story
Salafists in Gaza
* Small in number but appear to be attracting supporters
* View Hamas as too moderate
* Refuse to abide by ceasefires
* Launched hundreds of rockets at Israel
* Salafism espouses an austere form of Sunni Islam based on practices of
earliest Muslims
Mr Ghussein told reporters that the security forces had been led to the house
in Gaza City by one of the men involved.
He described the killing as a "heinous crime which has nothing to do with our
values, our religion, our customs and traditions", and vowed to hunt down and
bring to justice others who were involved.
In Rome, the Italian foreign ministry expressed "its deep horror over the
barbaric murder".
Mr Arrigoni was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and had
been in Gaza for several years.
Huwaida Arraf, a co-founder of the ISM, said he was very well-known in the
territory and had a "dynamic, humanitarian personality".
"I even thought that whoever has him is going to see his humanity and just let
him go, so when I heard what happened to him I was totally shocked," she told
the AFP news agency.
Hamas had been credited with eliminating the threat of kidnapping in Gaza until
his abduction. This is likely to be seen as a challenge to its authority, our
correspondent says.
------------------------------------
Post message: [email protected]
Subscribe : [email protected]
Unsubscribe : [email protected]
List owner : [email protected]
Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
