2 Italians Stoned to Death on Cape Verde
Pastor Dale Morgan
2 Italians Stoned to Death on Cape Verde*
Sunday February 11, 2007 2:46 AM
By FRANCES D'EMILIO
Associated Press Writer
ROME (AP) - Three Italian women were brutally attacked while vacationing
on a resort island off the coast of West Africa, dragged into the woods,
pelted with stones and left for dead at the bottom of a hole, the sole
survivor said Saturday.
The bodies of two of the women were found half-buried near a beach
Friday in the Cape Verde islands, police officer Vladmir Silva said.
Preliminary autopsy results found the victims, aged 28 and 33, died as a
result of head injuries from blunt and sharp objects, the Portuguese
news agency Lusa reported. Cape Verde police said official autopsy
results were expected to be released Sunday.
Police chief Oscar Tavares said three local men had been arrested and
would soon appear in court, Lusa reported.
The women were part of a surfing group that arrived in the islands last
Sunday for a weeklong vacation, said Italy's honorary consul in Cape
Verde, Luigi Zirpoli. The survivor - whom Italian news reports
identified as a 17-year-old named Agnese - suffered fractures and needed
18 stitches in her head, Zirpoli said.
Speaking with Italy's Sky TG24 TV from a hospital Saturday, Agnese
recounted how she and the two other women had been invited to dinner by
one of their attackers - a man who apparently had had a relationship
with one of the victims.
She said the attackers sprayed the women with something and immobilized
them before taking them to the woods where a hole had been dug in the
ground. Speaking in a stunned voice, she said they were pelted with
stones and she blacked out. When she awoke, she climbed out of the hole
and walked down a road until she found help.
``I don't know how I managed to recover after he threw a stone at my
head,'' she told Sky.
The story of the attack has shocked Italians, many of whom consider the
archipelago a paradise for beachgoers and windsurfers.
The Italian Foreign Ministry said the two women had been ``barbarously
murdered'' and dispatched a diplomat from its embassy in Senegal ``to
ensure that those responsible for this tragic aggression are brought
swiftly to justice.''
Italian Premier Romano Prodi said he was ``stunned'' and ``aghast'' by
the killings, the Italian news agency Apcom reported.
Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony, is located about 500 miles to
the west of Senegal's capital, Dakar, in the Atlantic Ocean.
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Associated Press Writer Joana Mateus in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to
this report.