Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

LIBYA

Italian vicar refuses to flee Libya despite threats

An Italian vicar has defied calls from Rome to leave Libya and vowed to stay in the country despite death threats, saying he would rather risk being beheaded and "martyred" by Islamic extremists.

Published: 17 February 2015 12:31 CET
Italian vicar refuses to flee Libya despite threats
Libyan police officers set up a checkpoint in Tripoli on January 25th 2015. Photo: Mahmud Turkia/AFP

Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli has sworn he will stay in the capital Tripoli, despite the Italian government on Friday warning its citizens to leave Libya amidst escalating violence.

“My community is here. How could I leave? It would be a betrayal,” he told Corriere del Veneto by phone. “This is the end of my mission. And if the end must bear witness to my blood, I will do it.” 

Martinelli, 73, was born in Libya before returning to north-east Italy with his family. He moved back to the country in 1971 as a monk and now leads the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Tripoli.

Despite the closure of the Italian embassy on Sunday and the repatriation of around 100 nationals to Italy, Martinelli celebrated mass on Monday and said he was “not moving” nor was he scared.

Christians in Libya have faced threats from Islamists in the country, with Martinelli being targeted in Tripoli. “They came into the church to tell me I must die. But I want it known that Father Martinelli is ok and that his mission could reach its term,” the vicar said.

His defiant stance comes just days after Isis militants released footage of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians being beheaded. The killings prompted Egypt to launch air strikes against Isis targets in Libya, while the Italian government called for a diplomatic response with UN involvement.

Martinelli said that he was well aware he could also be murdered by Islamic extremists.

“If God wants the end to be my head cut off, so be it. Also if God doesn’t look for heads cut off, but other things in a man…I could give testimony to something precious.

“I thank the Lord that He allows me to do so, even with martyrdom,” he said.

SEE ALSO: 'No military intervention in Libya': Renzi

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

ISIS

Ex-jihadi housewife jailed in Norway for joining IS

A Norwegian court on Tuesday sentenced a woman who lived as a housewife in Syria to prison for being a member of the Islamic State group (IS), despite not actively fighting herself.

Published: 4 May 2021 20:11 CEST
Ex-jihadi housewife jailed in Norway for joining IS
The Kurdish-run al-Hol camp which holds suspected relatives of Islamic State fighters.Photo: Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

The Oslo court sentenced the Norwegian-Pakistani woman to three and a half years in prison for “participating in a terrorist organisation” by taking care of her household and enabling her three husbands to fight.

“By travelling to an area controlled by IS in Syria… by moving in and living with her husbands, taking care of the children and various tasks at home, the defendant enabled her three husbands to actively participate in IS fighting,” judge Ingmar Nilsen said as he read out the verdict.

Being a housewife to three successive husbands did not render her a passive bystander, the judge said.

“On the contrary, she was a supporter who enabled the jihad, looked after her three husbands at home and raised the new generation of IS recruits,” he said.

The young woman, who admitted having “radical ideas” at the time, left for Syria in early 2013 to join an Islamist fighter, Bastian Vasquez, who was fighting the regime.

Although she did not take up arms herself, she was accused of having allowed her husbands to go fight while taking care of her two children and household chores.

The trial was the first prosecution in Norway of someone who had returned after joining IS.

“This is a special case,” prosecutor Geir Evanger acknowledged during the trial.

“This is the first time that, to put it bluntly, someone has been charged for being a wife and mother.”

The prosecution had called for a four-year sentence, while the defence had called for her acquittal and immediately appealed Tuesday’s verdict.

The woman’s lawyer, Nils Christian Nordhus, argued that his client had quickly wanted to leave Syria after being subjected to domestic violence.

She had also been a victim of human trafficking because she had been held against her will, he added.

But the judge stressed that she had participated in the organisation “knowingly” and of her own will.

The woman was repatriated to Norway in early 2020 on humanitarian grounds with her two children, including a young boy described as seriously ill.

At least four other Norwegian women and their children are being held in Kurdish-controlled camps in Syria.

SHOW COMMENTS