TERRORISM: Italian Hostage Killed

An Italian hostage known to be Salvatore Santoro, born on 10th January 1952, is believed to have been executed by an Islamic exetremist group. Footage was sent to Aljazeera, which showed Salvatore to be bound and blindfolded in a ditch with a gun to his head. The footage also showed his captors reading a statement along with Salvator's credit card and passport.


The Italian foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said, 'everything should be treated with the utmost caution'. This is because the corpse's face was covered and no clear comparison could be made between the body and the passport photo.

According to Fini the Foreign Ministry had recieved no confirmation of the capture of an Italian in Iraq. At this point in time there has been no official confirmation of Salvator Santoro's death. However, personaly i believe that Salvator Santoro has been killed because all of the evidence points in that direction. It is also possible that Fini has not made this official because he
may feel that on some level he is somehow responsible and that more could or should have been done to prevent this. Then again, prior knowledge to the Islamic group holding hostage Salvator is denied.


[edit on 16-12-2004 by Banshee]

Strange, didnt' the italian government already pay a million dollar ransom for two women a little while ago? Why didn't they pay for this man? Or were they not asked to pay? Why wouldn't they have asked, knowing that they might get it. Was any of that ransom money used to fund this murder?

prehaps the islamic group want people to think they are serious, then maybe next time if the same group aquire another hostage then that government would have almost no choice but to pay a ransom demand because they would know the likely outcome. Then again prehaps the italian government were asked to pay a ransom demand but refused, and this is why they are trying to cover up the fact that an italian was even taken hostage in the first place, let alone him actually being killed. i read somewhere that seven italian hostages have been held to date, two of which were killed. the rest were released including two women so that would probably be the two women you are on about.