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Italian may have been taken hostage, killed in Iraq
An Italian national may have been taken hostage in Iraq and killed, the Italian foreign ministry said.
The ANSA news agency reported, citing Italian intelligence sources, that Salvatore Santoro, 52, from the southern Campania region near Naples, had been taken hostage.
The foreign ministry later said his corpse may have already been found, but added that no information had yet been confirmed.
"Everything should be treated with the utmost caution," Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said on Ria television.
ANSA quoted intelligence sources as saying a previously unknown group had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping in a statement published on an Arabic-language website.
The Italian foreign ministry, which formed a crisis cell to try to verify the information, said an Iranian photographer had been shown a passport and body that could be Santoro's.
"A terrorist group took an Iraqi photographer to Ramadi and showed him the corpse of a man and a passport. It was of Salvatore Santoro, born in Naples on January 10, 1952, an Italian citizen who had long resided in Britain," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"But at this stage nothing has been confirmed and is being verified with the utmost prudence," the ministry added.
Fini said the information was still second-hand and that Salvatore had been issued a new passport by the Italian embassy in Amman, Jordan in January after reporting his stolen.
"There are still many obscure aspects and for this reason, and for this reason we have to use the conditional," said the foreign minister.
Santoro had long lived in Britain, and had a lengthy criminal record for fraud, theft and drug use, Fini said.
Some early information suggested he was working in Iraq for a British Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO). "For the moment we don't know where he was working," said Fini.
No British NGO reported any of its personnel missing.
Seven Italians have been taken hostage in Iraq since the beginning of the year. Two, including journalist Enzo Baldoni and a businessman of Iraqi origin, have been killed.
The others, including two women aid workers, have been released.
The announcement of the new hostage-taking came as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was in Washington meeting with US President George W. Bush.
Italy has some 3,000 troops stationed in Iraq, and has been one of the staunchest supporters of the US-led war. |
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