GAZA — The Hamas group that rules Gaza said early on Friday that it had found the body of a pro-Palestinian Italian activist a day after a radical, Al Qaeda-inspired Islamic organization said it kidnapped him to press demands for the release of its imprisoned leader.
The group that claimed the abduction, known as Tawhid and Jihad, had threatened to execute the Italian unless Hamas released the leader by 5 p.m. on Friday. But Palestinian officials said Hamas police officers stormed a house where the man was being held and found his body after a clash with his kidnappers. The police officials said he had been hanged, The Associated Press reported.
According to a friend who was in touch with him by e-mail, the Italian, Vittorio Arrigoni, was abducted on the day he planned to leave Gaza complaining of exhaustion. “I am very tense, exhausted, if they don’t kill anyone in the next 24 hours, I am getting out Thursday. Your V.,” he wrote on Monday to a friend in Italy, Daniela Loffreda, Ms. Loffreda said in a telephone interview.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/wo...16gaza.html?hp
Note: April 15, 2011