Hamas Says It Found Body of Italian Activist, Vittorio Arrigoni (video)

A radical, Al Qaeda-inspired Islamic group in Gaza said Thursday that it had kidnapped an Italian citizen in the Palestinian territory and threatened to execute him unless Hamas, which rules Gaza, released the group’s imprisoned leader by 5 p.m. on Friday.

But early Friday morning, Hamas officials announced that the body of the Italian man, a pro-Palestinian activist, had been found.

Palestinian officials said the Hamas police had stormed a house where they thought the man was being held and, after a clash with his abductors, found his body. The police said he had been hanged, The Associated Press reported.

The radical group, known as Tawhid and Jihad, had released a video on Thursday that it said showed the hostage. The group described the captive as “Victor, an Italian journalist” and called for the release of its supporters and other global jihadists.

The International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian activist organization with foreign volunteers in the West Bank and Gaza, had identified the man as Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, one of the movement’s activists in Gaza. Anna Stevens, a representative of the Palestinian-led movement in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said by telephone Thursday that Mr. Arrigoni was the man in the video, and that the movement’s contacts in Gaza confirmed that he had been kidnapped.

This was the first kidnapping of a foreigner in Gaza since Hamas, an Islamic militant group, took control of the territory in June 2007. It was likely to embarrass Hamas, which has prided itself on restoring security and ending years of armed chaos in Gaza.

The video, similar to those released by extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan, showed Mr. Arrigoni blindfolded and being held roughly by the hair. Only the outstretched arm of the hidden captor was visible.

Mr. Arrigoni was a familiar face in Gaza, where he was better known as Victor. He arrived in the summer of 2008 on the first boat of activists that sailed here to protest a blockade imposed by Israel with Egyptian help. Mr. Arrigoni had been an active participant in demonstrations and rallies against the blockade. The restrictions on the entry of goods overland have eased in recent months, but a strict naval blockade remains in force.

The last foreigner kidnapped in Gaza was Alan Johnston, a BBC Gaza correspondent who was captured in March 2007 and held for 114 days. He was released without violence after negotiations between Hamas and his kidnappers, who belonged to a shadowy radical group calling itself the Army of Islam.

Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in 2006, is itself designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union. It has cracked down on smaller, more radical Islamic groups in Gaza since it seized control of the area after a brief, factional war against Fatah, its secularist rival.

The Gaza leader of Tawhid and Jihad, Hisham Saidani, was arrested by Hamas’s forces in March.

In a statement released hours before Hamas announced the death of the captured man, the Italian Foreign Ministry said that it had been carrying out “the appropriate steps for every intervention to protect our citizen.”

Hamas officials said in a statement that the house that was stormed Friday morning belonged to a member of the group that released the video. The officials said one suspect had been arrested. The A.P. reported that a policeman said four people had been arrested in another location in connection with the abduction.

Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Rachel Donadio from Rome.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/middleeast/15gaza.html?src=mv