Italian PM and Christian Convert Possible Terror Targets
June 18, 2008 by national
Filed under World Report
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a prominent Italian journalist who recently converted to Christianity, are the targets of new death threats posted on one of the most popular Islamist websites said to be close to al-Qaeda, on Tuesday.
The threats are aimed at Berlusconi and Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-born newspaper editor who converted from Islam to Roman Catholicism during the Vatican’s Easter vigil in April 2008.
A writer and deputy editor of Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Allam was named the winner of the prestigious Oriana Fallaci journalism award on Monday night for writing about immigration, Muslim integration and terrorism.
Previous threats to the Italian premier were made in Arabic but Tuesday’s internet message was for the first time posted completely in Italian with the title, ‘Berlusconi and Magdi Allam’.
“They are two dead men walking.. just like Falcone ..” an apparent reference to the anti-Mafia judge, Giovanni Falcone, who prosecuted the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. He and his wife were assassinated in a bombing in 1992.
“A coded message? Perhaps!” says the internet message.
