Captured along with three other Italians working in Iraq as private security guards, then murdered by terrorists in April of 2004, Fabrizio Quattrocchi ruined the video his executioners were recording. Instead of allowing himself to be put to death cowering like a sheep, Quattrocchi pulled the hood from his face, faced the video camera, and said defiantly: Adesso (or ora) vi faccio vedere come muore un italiano! [Now I will show you how an Italian dies!].

He was shot in the back of the neck, but Al Jazeera never broadcast the video, claiming hypocritically that it was “too gruesome.” His fellow hostages were liberated by US forces.

Fabrizio Quattrocchi behaved in reality the way we only expect to see human beings today behave on stage, in plays like Lion in Winter:

Richard: He’ll get no satisfaction out of me. He isn’t going to see me beg.

Geoffrey: Why, you chivalric fool, as if the way one fell down mattered.

Richard: When the fall is all there is, it matters.

On March 20, 2006, Fabrizio Quattrochi was awarded posthumously the Medaglia d’Oro al Valor Civile [Gold Medal for Valor by a Civilian] by the Italian Govenment.
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Hat tip to Winds of Change via Pajamas Media.