Home > Italian aid worker killed in Israel

Italian aid worker killed in Israel

by Open-Publishing - Monday 14 August 2006
8 comments

Edito International Italy European Left

Rome, August 11 - A 24-year-old Italian aid worker was stabbed to death in Jerusalem on Thursday evening.

Israeli police described the murder of Angelo Frammartino as a politically motivated "act of terrorism" .

Police detained five young Palestinians during the night, but later released them without charge .

Frammartino, a law student from the town of Monterotondo near Rome, was working as a volunteer at a summer camp for Palestinian children run by Italian trade union CGIL .

He was stabbed twice in the back and once in the throat at about 8pm during an evening out in the Israeli capital .

People in his home town described him as a polite, cheerful, conscientious young man.

Frammartino was also the director of the Monterotondo youth section of the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) and highly active in anti-war and Third World development campaigns .

"I am deeply pained by the news that has struck your most loved one and I want to express my profound condolences for the loss of your son, who died tragically while he was working on a worthy humanitarian mission," wrote Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier Massimo D’Alema in a message to Frammartino’s parents .

House Speaker Fausto Bertinotti, the former head of the PRC, also wrote a letter of condolence to Frammartino’s family, in which he stated that: "Angelo lost his life while he fought for the cause of peace, dialogue, cooperation and non-violence" .

The president of the Lazio regional government, Piero Marrazzo, said that a "messenger of peace" had been killed .

"In a world with hate running through it, a voice that firmly believed in dialogue and solidarity has been silenced," Marrazzo added .

The town of Monterotondo said the day of Frammartino’s funeral will be a day of civic mourning for its "hero of peace" .

PRC Senate Whip Giovanni Russo Spena said the dead aid worker was "one of us, a pacifist, a lad who worked in the world of development cooperation to build bridges between peoples" .

Russo Spena said it was a "tragic paradox of the global war" that a Palestinian, "a child of the people he loved most", killed Frammartino .

The Monterotondo PRC youth section released an extract of Frammartino’s last e-mail to them as a tribute .

"It is necessary to learn to love from scratch, to love again every day," Frammartino wrote in the message, quoting a fictional Italian radio character .

"He was full of enthusiasm and humour, a character trait I’ll never forget," said Massimiliano Spinnato, a local PRC chief who knew the 24-year-old .

"Angelo had a passion for politics, but not the sort that makes headlines in the newspapers every day, the form of politics that is with the people and those who are suffering .

"He wanted to go to the Middle East to see what was really happening there. His main desire was to see peace" .

Michele de Palma, the national leader of the PRC youth section, said Frammartino viewed war and terrorism as threats to humanity .

De Palma also recalled some lines from an article Frammartino wrote in a local daily .

"We want to use his own words to talk about him: Make love with non-violence to give birth to peace from the womb of society’," de Palma said .

Frammartino flew out to Jerusalem on August 1 and was due to return home Saturday .

http://ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-08-11_1114170.html

Forum posts

  • It is kind of obvious who stabbed the poor young man . I will not point any fingers here but here we have a person who is working with Palestinian well fare in Israel .

    • How is it "obvious"? Did Frammartino walk around with an armband reading "I help Palestinians"?

      Who does most of the political killing in Israel? The Palestinians and their terrorist allies. That’s the reality, and the data with which we must work with in trying to decide who probably murdered Mr. Frammartino. Other conclusions are possible - just not supported by the preponderance of the facts.

  • It is kind of obvious who stabbed the poor young man . I will not point any fingers here but Israel police already caught the killer http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3293213,00.html and guess who he is???

    Muslim Arab of corse!!! That’s why I think that Islam is an huge threat to the west!!!

    • Upon his arrest, the Palestinian who stabbed Frammartino said:
      "I thought he was a Jew."

    • The Israel and her loyal servant America are a threat to the world and humanity. STOP INVADING other countries so people do not have to defend themselves against WESTERN BRUTALITYand AGRESSION USA/israel ARE INVADING SOVEREIGN NATIONS _ HOW DUMB ARE YOU FK WITS NOT TO REALISE OR UNDERSTAND THAT PEOPLE WILL RESIST AND DEFEND THEMSELVES, THEIR HOMES AND THEIR FUTURE. STAY OUT OF OTHER COUNTRIES AND SORT OUT YOUR OWN DOMESTIC AFFAIRS - YOU HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO. A SUGGESTION- TRY IMPROVING YOUR SHTHOUSE US ECONOMY TO START WITH. TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN DEBT but CAN STILL AFFORD TO SEND YOUR ISRAELI MASTERS BILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR. HAHA THE JOKE IS ON YOU YANKEE SUCKERS TAKEN FOR A RIDE.

    • As an American I couldn’t agree more.

  • The odd thing is that you just don’t know for sure who killed him. It could have been the angry arabs who lash out with justifiable hatred at anything to do with the west, or it could be the cynical Israelis who view anybody sympathetic to the Palestinians as fair game.

    In either case, the Italian young man died in a state of grace. He tried to do good in a world gone mad and paid the ultimate price.

  • Were I a Christian, I would call this young man a saint. In his demeaner, his writing, etc, he was in the vanguard of a movement to inspire the ordinary people of the world to stop the advance of powerful corporate interest bent on taking over the planet—the largest plantation ever imagined in our lifetimes—with a world society structured to support the new pharohs at the top of the pyramid. His name should be kept in our memories as one of the new martyrs of the new resistence movement for world democracy.
    VIVA IL MOVEMENTO DELLA GENTE!