“My name is Sergio Zanotti and I have been a prisoner here in Syria for seven months. I ask the Italian government to intervene against me before my possible execution"
These are the words spoken by an Italian citizen, originally from Brescia, in a video released by the Russian site Newsfront. According to the same source, the man has been in the hands of an unidentified group in Syria for seven months.
The Foreign Ministry's Crisis Unit reports that the Italian authorities have known of the existence of the video for seven months and are already working on the case.
In the video we see Zanotti, with a long beard and dressed in a white tunic, kneeling outdoors among some olive trees. Behind him, a man dressed in black and with his face covered is pointing a machine gun at the hostage.
The kneeling man is holding up a sign that reads a date, apparently November 15, 2016.
Newsfront also released another photo in which the alleged hostage is standing. Below is a copy of the passport, made out to Sergio Zanotti, born in 1960 in Marone, in the province of Brescia.
The video - according to what has been ascertained so far by Italian investigators - has been on the web for about a week and does not seem "unique", since the Italian, albeit with a long beard, does not appear in the images particularly tried by the alleged seven months of captivity. According to reports from Ansa, the investigators, who are reconstructing the man's movements, would have ascertained that a few months ago Zanotti actually left Italy for Turkey, where all traces of him have been lost.
Sources from the Farnesina speak of an anomalous case, which cannot be automatically traced back to an act of terrorism. Investigators are reconstructing the movements of Zanotti who a few months ago left for Turkey, where all traces of him have been lost.
