Italy Grieves for Hostage Who ‘Died a Hero’ in Iraq

His face peered out from the front pages of Italy’s major newspapers Thursday, under headlines that only barely captured the public’s outrage: Murder! Horror in Iraq! Hostage Slaughtered!

Fabrizio Quattrocchi, a 36-year-old former baker, had taken a security job in Iraq to earn enough money to get married. On Wednesday, he was executed by Iraqi militants who took him hostage along with three other Italian men.

A videotape of the slaying was delivered to the Al Jazeera satellite television channel, which rarely shies away from airing graphic footage but judged this excerpt too grisly for viewers. Of the dozens of foreign nationals who have been kidnapped in recent days, Quattrocchi became the first whose killing has been publicized.

The death immediately put new pressure on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose decision to support Washington’s war in Iraq is widely unpopular in Italy. But politicians were closing ranks Thursday, at least for the time being, and the government reiterated its determination to keep about 3,000 Italian troops in Iraq.

“They have destroyed a life,” Berlusconi said of the kidnappers. “They have not cracked our values and our efforts for peace.”

Across the country, horrified Italians struggled to come to terms with the news. Radio stations preempted their regular programming to discuss what one commentator called a barbarous act. Quattrocchi’s hometown of Genoa was in mourning.

Quattrocchi was reportedly made to face a crude grave and then shot in the neck.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who confirmed the killing after an Italian diplomat in Qatar viewed the videotape, said Quattrocchi “died a hero,” defiant to the end. The minister said that Quattrocchi, with a gun pointed at his head, attempted to remove his hood and declared: “Now I will show you how an Italian dies.”

The kidnappers are reportedly threatening to kill the other Italian hostages unless Italy withdraws its troops and Berlusconi apologizes for insulting Islam. The prime minister was widely criticized in 2001 when he was quoted as saying that Western civilization was superior to the Islamic world.

The Italian government has said it will not “deal with terrorists” but has asked Iran to help negotiate the men’s release. The men were working for a U.S. security firm as guards.

A senior Italian official rushed to the region after Wednesday’s killing.

“The government will do everything possible to gain the release of the Italians, but with one proviso: We cannot give in to blackmail,” Frattini told a parliamentary committee, before which he was summoned for the second time in as many weeks to report on the spiraling violence.

Politicians were giving the government support, but the slain man’s family demanded an end to the war. They were especially angry that Frattini confirmed the hostage’s death while speaking live on a TV talk show.

“It seems as if the government wanted to demonstrate its strength by playing with the lives of people in Iraq,” the family said in a statement, according to the ANSA news service.

Quattrocchi had gone to Iraq to earn money so he could marry his fiancee, buy a house and start a family, relatives said. He had joined the family baking business but had to quit because he was allergic to flour.

“He was supposed to come back to me,” the fiancee, who gave her name only as Alice, told reporters. “We were supposed to get married. The only consolation is to know he died a hero.”