Italy hails "hero" hostage, stands firm on troops (MUST READ

To: Matthew Paul

========= Fabrizio Quattrocchi =========

Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi, kidnapped by Iraqi (read Iranian and Syrian) terrorists
was murdered as the terrorists posed for Al-Jazeera television which was going to
show his vicious murder until he said, "I'm going to show you how an Italian dies."
Al-Jazeera which has NO trouble masking out terrorists faces and showing beheadings
decided this comment of heroism facing terror could not go out. It has not.

Fabrizio Quattrocchi, 36, in better times.

41 posted on 04/15/2004 4:08:19 PM PDT by Diogenesis (If you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us)

To: areafiftyone

When Silvio Berlusconi said the following, it made me truly proud to be an Italian American for the first time in my life:

We will never forget that we owe our freedom – our freedom – our wealth to the United States of America. And our democracy. And we also will never forget there have been many American young lives that were lost and sacrificed themselves for us.

So for us, the United States is not only our friend, but they are the guarantee of our democracy and our freedom...every time I see the U.S. flag, I don't see the flag only representative of a country, but I see it as a symbol of democracy and of freedom.

Now with the heroic passing of Mr. Quattrocchio, maybe Italians (along with Catholicism as a religion) will cease to be the sole remaining ethnic group to be stereotyped, i.e., the Sopranos and other murderous, vile monsters such as those we now fight.

42 posted on 04/15/2004 4:11:49 PM PDT by LisaFab

To: areafiftyone

Aquiles in su! Il dio li benedice - hero - God speed and prayers for you and your family.

44 posted on 04/15/2004 4:14:01 PM PDT by VaMarVet

To: areafiftyone; jwalsh07

"I'm going to show you how an Italian dies."

God Bless Fabrizio Quattrocchi

45 posted on 04/15/2004 4:15:36 PM PDT by deadhead (God Bless Our Troops and Veterans Bush-Cheney '04)

To: areafiftyone

Get that video!!!

46 posted on 04/15/2004 4:17:57 PM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)

Thanks for the pics of Fabrizio. A beautiful person is shown here.....and a terrible loss to Italy and the world.....

I am humbled by this man's bravery and courage!

God please take this man into your arms and comfort his family and friends.....

47 posted on 04/15/2004 4:20:48 PM PDT by BossLady (You don't need a wishbone....You need a backbone.....)

To: Matthew Paul

I am so pissed off.

Prayers for the family. Is there some way to honor his memory, or help his family with a financial donation?

48 posted on 04/15/2004 4:23:17 PM PDT by Cboldt

To: areafiftyone

Bumping for an Italian hero.

May God welcome him home to his comforting arms, and give grace and peace to his family.

50 posted on 04/15/2004 4:40:05 PM PDT by baseballmom

Yup, we can only hope we would do the same.

52 posted on 04/15/2004 4:45:28 PM PDT by jwalsh07

God bless Fabrizio's family and the whole nation of Italy. I've been there several times and the people are wonderful.

53 posted on 04/15/2004 4:49:52 PM PDT by Lauratealeaf (God bless our troops and their Commander in Chief, President George W. Bush)

To: areafiftyone

God Italy must be proud of this man.

54 posted on 04/15/2004 4:52:43 PM PDT by McGavin999 (Evil thrives when good men do nothing.)

To: Matthew Paul

Have there been any more threats to Czestochowa recently?

55 posted on 04/15/2004 4:56:18 PM PDT by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)

To: Prince Charles

Raise a glass to the memory of a hero.

Salute!

56 posted on 04/15/2004 4:57:14 PM PDT by LoudRepublicangirl (loudrepublicangirl)

To: areafiftyone

Thank God for the Italians. I love this country, and hope to visit soon. The complete opposite of France.

God Bless Fabrizio Quattrocchi.

58 posted on 04/15/2004 5:14:42 PM PDT by jporcus

To: AllenBarraIsRight

I am not Italian, but I am from New Jersey, and so, by the powers vested in me, let me just say Fabrizio Quattrocchi, we salute you as a TRUE HERO and a real man in a time that needed more men like you. May God bless you and keep you and may peace be upon your family.

59 posted on 04/15/2004 5:16:16 PM PDT by Huck (In the Soviet Union, the Admin Moderators ruled.)

Defiant hostage's murder on video outrages Italians
By Bruce Johnston in Rome
(Filed: 16/04/2004)

The Italian hostage executed in Iraq tried to tear off his hood seconds before he was shot dead and screamed: "Now I'll show you how an Italian dies."

Details of the final moments of Fabrizio Quattrocchi deepened Italy's shock and outrage at the hostage crisis as it awaited further news of the three other men seized with him on Monday.

The four Italian hostages were filmed holding their passports
The Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, yesterday hailed as a hero Mr Quattrocchi, 36, a former baker. The killers filmed the murder and Mr Frattini revealed details after Italy's ambassador to Qatar was shown the footage by the Arab television station Al-Jazeera, which has not broadcast the video.

"I have been authorised by the [victim's] family . . . to reveal the final words of this boy who died what I would call a courageous death, I would say like a hero," Mr Frattini said.

"When his assassins were pointing a gun at him, this boy tried to remove the hood and shouted: 'Now I'll show you how an Italian dies.' And they killed him."

Mr Quattrocchi's abductors shot him in the neck at close range. Al-Jazeera said that he had been forced to dig his own grave.

Foreign minister Franco Frattini confirmed the news during a TV awards show
Millions of Italians, including the victim's family in Genoa, learned of his death while watching a chat show on Wednesday night.

Relatives of the other hostages were in the audience. They had an agonising wait to discover which man had died after hearing that a hostage had been killed before the programme was aired. Although Mr Frattini was among the programme's guests, it was the show's host, Bruno Vespa, who made the announcement at midnight. Then Mr Frattini confirmed the grim news of Mr Quattrocchi's death.

Francesco Cupertino, the brother of one of the other hostages, asked the foreign minister: "What will happen now?" Mr Frattini replied: "We have to work hard to bring them out." He said Italy would do "what is possible and impossible". But he underlined that it would not negotiate with the kidnappers, who call themselves the Green Brigade of the Prophet.

Mr Quattrocchi was born in Sicily and moved to Genoa with his family. He had become a bodyguard after doing a stint as a nightclub bouncer then signed up to work in Iraq.

He was said to have accepted a job as a security guard working in Iraq for an American company, to earn enough for a home in Italy and to get married.

"Fabrizio was a wonderful man, a man of iron but who had never hurt a fly," his fiancee, Alice, told Italian television yesterday. "He was supposed to come back to me and we were to be married.

"The only consolation is that he died with honour."

But relatives of one of the other hostages, Salvatore Stefio, 34, reacted with despondency and despair. "He may have died a hero but he is still dead," said Mr Stefio's younger brother Christian. Mr Stefio's wife Emanuala, said: "With the murder of Fabrizio Quattrocchi, part of us has also died."

Mr Stefio's father Angelo called on Italians to "take to the streets in order to stop all this". He appealed for the peacekeeping coalition to try to broker an exchange to secure the remaining hostages' release.

Al-Jazeera said a statement sent with the video had given a warning that three other Italians who were working for an American company and were kidnapped with Mr Quattrocchi near Fallujah would be killed "one by one".

Most Italian politicians closed ranks around Silvio Berlusconi, the centre-Right prime minister, who has said he will not be bullied into withdrawing 3,000 Italian troops from Iraq. "They have cut short a life," Mr Berlusconi said. "They have not damaged our values and commitment to peace."

However, Mr Quattrocchi's family said he might have lived if Mr Berlusconi had not made "rash" comments after the kidnappings.

"Before making declarations of force, the government would have done better to have opened talks with the kidnappers," the family said.

"There is the feeling that the government wanted to make a show of strength by playing with the lives of those [Italians] in Iraq."

Colleagues of Mr Quattrocchi said he had been captured while accompanying a group of clients on the road to Amman in Jordan.

60 posted on 04/15/2004 5:17:59 PM PDT by VaMarVet

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