Italian hostage ‘died a hero’ shares an important piece of the story I had not yet heard:
The Italian who was the first civilian hostage to be killed in Iraq was today hailed as a hero who defied his captors and told them: “Now I’ll show you how an Italian dies.”Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini, confirmed Fabrizio Quattrocchi’s death, and said that an Italian official had seen a videotape of the killing of the 36-year-old security guard, one of four Italians taken hostage on Monday.
The tape of his killing was sent to Qatar-based Arab television station Al-Jazeera, which said that it was ‘too bloody’ to show.
Mr Frattini said: “This boy, as the assassins were pointing the gun at him, tried to take off his hood and shouted: ‘Now I’ll show you how an Italian dies’ … he died as a hero.”
The hostage makes a show of bravado…and Al-Jazeera decides the killing is “too bloody” to show. Hmm…
I’d heard simply that the hostage was a baker:
Like two of the other Italian hostages, Quattrocchi worked for a US-based security company. The fourth captive was employed by a Seychelles-based firm, Mr Frattini said.Born in Sicily and raised in the northern city of Genoa, Quattrocchi used to work as a baker until he moved into security in 2000.
He took courses in the field before working as a nightclub bouncer and then a bodyguard, Italian newspapers, quoting his family, said. He was also a keen practitioner of martial arts.