Fabrizio Quattrocchi was a 36-year-old Italian security guard taken hostage by Islamist militants in Iraq and murdered there on April 15, 2004.
He was taken hostage together with Umberto Cupertino , Maurizio Agliana and Salvatore Stefio . Their situation was made especially difficult since they were security contractors, and were allegedly captured bearing arms. Unauthorized recruitment of military forces is a crime in Italy, and Giampiero Spinelli , who arranged their contract in Iraq, was prosecuted.
Quattrocchi's kidnappers forced him to dig his own grave and kneel beside it wearing a hood as they prepared to film his death, but he defied them by pulling off the hood and shouting "Adesso (or ora) vi faccio vedere come muore un'italiano." -- "Now I will show you how an Italian dies." He was then shot in the back of the neck.
The Arabic television station Al Jazeera refused to show the videotape of his death, saying it was "too gruesome". Al Jazeera had already shown several beheadings. Many commentators have celebrated Quattrocchi's defiance and suggested that he ruined the propaganda value of the video by refusing to submit to his murderers.
Cupertino, Agliana and Stelfio would later be freed in a bloodless raid by US troops, that Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said he had approved beforehand, just before an important election in Italy.
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Last updated: 10-29-2005 02:13:46
