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Italian hostage slain in Iraq
15/04/2004 07:35 - (SA)
Baghdad, Iraq - Iraqi militants executed one of four Italian hostages, officials in Rome confirmed early on Thursday - the first known execution of any of the 22 foreigners being held in Iraq.
The militants who killed the Italian hostage demanded the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq and threatened to kill the three other hostages, Al-Jazeera reported.
The Qatar-based TV network reported that it had video of the killing but said it was too graphic to broadcast. Al-Jazeera did show footage of the four Italian security guards sitting on the ground, holding up their passports and surrounded by armed men.
The Italian ambassador to Qatar watched the video and confirmed the man killed was Fabrizio Quattrocchi, one of the kidnapped Italians, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said.
Frattini said the government would do "what is possible and impossible" to free the remaining three.
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said, "They have cut short a life. They have not damaged our values and our commitment to peace,"
The four Italian security guards were abducted on Monday. The videotape was accompanied by a statement from a previously unknown group, the Green Battalion, said it would "kill the three remaining Italian hostages one after the other, if their demands are not met," Al-Jazeera said.
The group demanded the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, an apology from Berlusconi and the release of religious clerics held in Iraq.
Berlusconi has ruled out any withdrawal of troops.
Three of the Italian captives were working for a US-based company while a fourth was employed by a Seychelles-based firm, Frattini said.
He stressed that the four Italian hostages were not members of Italian intelligence, and that the abductors were "terrorists and killers" who were "out of control" - not members of any organised resistance.
Four-day ordeal
Earlier on Wednesday, a French journalist was freed after a four-day hostage ordeal and reports said two Japanese journalists were kidnapped outside Baghdad.
The French television journalist was freed unharmed at a mosque in Baghdad, saying he had endured constant threats to his life.
Alexandre Jordanov, who works for Capa Television in Paris, was kidnapped on Sunday while videotaping a US military convoy under attack. He was travelling with cameraman Ivan Ceriex, who was released the next day.
Jordanov, 40, said his abductors switched his location eight times, passing him from one armed group to another.
"It was: 'We're going to cut your throat' to 'You're part of the Mossad,"' Jordanov said, referring to the Israeli secret service.
Herve Chabalier, president of Capa, told LCI television that negotiations with Sunni religious authorities led to Jordanov's release.
Japanese abducted
Tokyo officials were investigating reports that two Japanese freelance journalists were abducted in a Baghdad suburb. Three other Japanese are among the foreigners abducted and still being held.
Reports by Kyodo News service and major Japanese newspapers said a journalists' group received an e-mail saying the two were abducted on Wednesday west of Baghdad.
The daily newspaper Asahi said Japan Visual Journalist Association received the e-mail about the kidnappings from unidentified "Iraqi sources" who arranged a car for the two Japanese. American experts, meanwhile, were conducting tests to determine whether four bodies discovered west of Baghdad are the remains of private US contractors missing since an assault on their convoy on Friday.
One of them, a 43-year-old truck driver, is known to have been abducted. His captors have threatened to kill and mutilate him unless US troops ended their assault on Fallujah. The deadline passed on Sunday with no word on his fate.
- AP
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