Four arrests over Gaza murder of Italian

Vittorio Arrigoni  Gaza ? AFP The Hamas government said Saturday it has arrested two more suspects in connection with the murder of an Italian activist, hanged hours after his abduction. The interior ministry "managed to arrest two suspects" in the murder on Friday of pro-Palestinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni, in addition to two other suspects previously taken into custody, a statement said.
"The security forces continue to hunt other members of the group responsible for the murder," said the statement.
The suspects arrested were being questioned about Arrigoni's murder, it added, without revealing their names or when they were arrested.
Hamas had said Friday two suspected kidnappers were arrested and security officials were looking for accomplices.
Gaza was in shock and mourning Friday after a radical Islamist group killed an Italian activist just hours after kidnappinghim in an act deplored by Rome as "barbaric."
Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, who was working with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was found dead by the security forces in a house in northern Gaza early on Friday.
He had been hanged, Hamas security officials said.
Arrigoni was kidnapped a day earlier by a Salafist group which had demanded that Hamas release Salafist prisoners within a 30-hour deadline that was to have expired on Friday afternoon. It was not clear why they killed him.
The murder drew widespread condemnation, from Gaza City to Italy to the United Nations.
Hamas called it a "heinous crime" and vowed to hunt down the perpetrators, while Italy decried an "act of vile and senseless violence."
Arrigoni's friends and family were devastated, and spoke of their shock that the killers had targeted "a real activist for Palestinian human rights."
In a video posted on YouTube, the kidnappers said Arrigoni had been taken hostage in order to secure the release of an unspecified number of Salafists detained by Hamas, including Hisham al-Saedini, a leader of the radical group Tawhid wal Jihad.
The kidnappers, who said they belonged to the Brigade of the Gallant Companion of the Prophet Mohammed bin Muslima, said they would execute Arrigoni if their demands were not met by 5:00 pm (1400 GMT) on Friday.
Tawhid wal Jihad denied it had anything to do with the kidnapping, while acknowledging that the murder was the result of Hamas's "repression" of Salafists.
"What happened is the natural result of the repressive policy of Hamas and its government against the Salafists," it said.
"We and others have for a long time warned the Hamas government against the risks of acting, against the Salafist trend."
In Gaza City, Hamas officials said two people had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the kidnapping and said they were hunting further accomplices to what spokesman Ihab al-Ghussein called a "heinous crime which has nothing to do with our values, our religion, our customs and traditions.
"The other members of the group will be hunted down," he said.
Italy's foreign ministry expressed "deep horror over the barbaric murder," saying it was an "act of vile and senseless violence committed by extremists who are indifferent to the value of human life."
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for "the perpetrators of this appalling crime to be brought to justice as soon as possible," his spokesperson said in a statement.
Arrigoni's kidnappers described him as a "journalist who came to our country for nothing but to corrupt people" a charge completely rejected by activists and aid workers who knew him in Gaza.
"He's very well-known, he lives among the people," said Huwaida Arraf, a co-founder of ISM. "Vit has repeatedly put his life in danger, put his life on the line in support of the Palestinians."
A journalist colleague at the Italian daily Il Manifesto said he was "astounded" by Arrigoni's death.
"We're also wondering how a pacifist who was wholeheartedly pro-Palestinian could be killed by Palestinians, even though you have to ask who those Palestinians were," Maurizio Matteuzzi told AFP.
In Jerusalem, shocked Italian volunteers who had just left Gaza converged on a hotel in the city's annexed eastern sector, the horror evident upon their faces.
"He was a lively, lovely person, we made fun of him because he was more Palestinian than Italian," said Simona Ghizzoni, a 34-year-old photographer who worked in Gaza for the Italian NGO Cospe.
"He was a real believer and a real activist for Palestinian human rights.
"When we got to the Palestinian checkpoint before Erez, there were all these Palestinians coming and saying 'We are sorry, we are sorry.' All the Palestinians I met are completely shocked and sad," she said.
Arrigoni is the third ISM member to be killed in Gaza, US national Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in March 2003, and a month later Briton Tom Hurndall was shot and critically injured by the army. He died in January 2004.
In Gaza City, several hundred people rallied in the Square of the Unknown Soldier against the killing, while in the West Bank, around 100 people, most of them foreigners, marched through Ramallah to a house of mourning in El Bireh, an AFP correspondent said.
Arrigoni, 36, was a blogger who had lived in Gaza since arriving in August 2008 aboard a humanitarian aid boat that Israel admitted despite imposing a blockade on the territory.
Hamas vehemently opposes Salafists for ideological reasons and also because they appear to be attracting recruits — including from Hamas.
Although it shares Al Qaida's enmity toward the Jewish state, Hamas has aroused Salafist anger by observing truces with Israel and exploring political accommodation with secular rivals like Abbas.
Ehab Al Ghssain, spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry, said the arrest and questioning of one of the group had led to the discovery of where Arrigoni was being held.
"The forces moved quickly and wisely to the place but found that the abducted man was killed hours earlier in an ugly manner, according to the pathologist," Al Ghssain said.
He said the abductors had rented the house where the body was found and had used someone else's car to try to conceal their identities.
"Their intention from the very beginning was to kill their victim, because the crime took place after a short period of his abduction."
In a YouTube clip posted earlier by his abductors, Arrigoni was shown blindfolded with blood around his right eye. A hand was seen pulling his head up by his hair to face the camera.
The accompanying Arabic text said: ‘The Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption". It described Italy as "the infidel state'.
Arrigoni was the first foreign national to be abducted in Gaza since BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who was held for 114 days by an Al Qaida-inspired group.
Supporter of Palestinian cause who sought to stay back in Gaza
Vittorio Arrigoni was a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
Arrigoni had been living on-and-off in the Gaza Strip since 2008, when he first arrived in the Palestinian territory on a boat chartered by the ISM.
In late 2008, he was arrested by Israeli troops while accompanying Palestinian fishermen off Gaza's coast, and was deported. He later returned and had been living in Gaza City.
He was in Gaza during Israel's devastating war on the enclave at the turn of 2009 and wrote a book about his time there.
A Salafist group had posted a video of him online and threatened to kill him unless an unspecified number of their members were released by the Hamas administration in Gaza.
There are five major Salafist groups in Gaza. Their religious observances and refusal to abide by various ceasefires have set them on a path of confrontation with Hamas.
Arrigoni's kidnappers identified themselves as belonging to a previously unknown group called The Brigade of the Gallant Companion of the Prophet Mohammad Bin Muslima. They demanded the release of "all our prisoners", naming in particular Shaikh Hesham Al Sudani and threatened to kill Arrigoni in 30 hours from 0800 GMT on April 14. It was unclear why he was killed before the expiry of the deadline.