Paul KeenanObserver group working to verify claim
An NGO monitoring the civil conflict in Syria is attempting to verify a claim that the kidnapped Italian Jesuit Fr Paolo Dall’Oglio was executed soon after his abduction last year.
According to the Syrian Human Rights League, a defector from the militant grouping the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has claimed he was present as the priest was shot to death in the city of Raqaa following the abduction on July 29, 2013.
The defector, Abu Mohammad Assuri, has reportedly claimed that when the priest was snatched from the street by members of ISIL, he was driven to a building serving as the group’s headquarters in Raqaa at that time. Assuri further claims that Fr Dall’Oglio was shot barely two hours later, and by two Saudi brothers whom he identified as Kassab and Khilad Al Jazrawwi.
Assuri has been unable to provide verification of his claims at this point, and has not offered details of where the priest’s body may now lie.
Since Fr Dall’Oglio’s disappearance, there have been a number of claims that he remains alive and in captivity, with Italian authorities attempting still to reach the truth as to his fate. Italy’s foreign minister, Federica Mogherini urged caution on the execution report, while another monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory, insisted that its own most up to date information is that the priest’s captors still hope to negotiate his release.