Italian journalist goes missing in Iraq

An Italian freelance journalist remained missing in Iraq today, authorities said, amid reports that his Iraqi interpreter may have been found dead.

Enzo Baldoni, who went to Iraq for the news magazine Diario, has been considered missing since yesterday, when the Foreign Ministry announced he had not checked in with Italian officials in Iraq, as is customary.

His last reported contact was Thursday, when he was travelling to the southern city of Najaf.

Diario’s editor in chief, Enrico Deaglio, told the ANSA news agency today that the interpreter’s corpse “was found near Najaf and his body was brought to Baghdad. Still no news of Baldoni, but one increasingly fears a kidnapping”.

The Italian Red Cross, which is working in Iraq, said that Shiite sources in the country had also told them Baldoni’s interpreter was dead.

“None of us have seen the corpse,” Italian Red Cross spokesman Fabrizio Centofanti stressed. But “they said he was killed by gunfire”.

The Italian Foreign Ministry said it was still looking into the matter.

Italian reports described Baldoni as a 56-year-old who worked in advertising and visits war zones in his free time, selling occasional articles. He was on his first trip to Iraq.