An Italian national, Sergio
Zanotti, has been held captive by an unidentified armed group in
Syria for seven months, the Russian site Newsfront reported on
Tuesday.
The site showed a video in which the hostage, a native of
Brescia, appears to call on the Italian government to intervene
to prevent him being executed.
Sources at the Italian foreign ministry's crisis unit said
that the Italian authorities had been aware of the video for
several days and were following the case.
A man appears in the video with a long beard and dressed in a
white tunic, kneeling out in the open amid olive trees.
Behind him another man is standing, dressed in black and with
his face covered, aiming a machine gun at him.
The kneeling man is holding a placard with a date on it,
apparently November 15 2016.
In another photo posted on the same site the alleged hostage
is standing, barefoot, holding the same placard.
Below his image is that of his passport, made out to Sergio
Zanotti, born in 1960 at Marone near Brescia.
"My name is Sergio Zanotti," says the man, speaking with a
Brescian accent, "and for seven months I have been imprisoned
here in Syria. I appeal to the Italian government to intervene
for me before I am executed".
Italian investigators say the video has been circulating on
the Web for about a week and the Italian does not appear to have
suffered a lot from his alleged seven months of imprisonment.
Investigators are reconstructing the man's movements and have
established that Zanotti did indeed leave Italy several months
ago for Turkey, where he disappeared.
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