Ghareeb was NOT a spy

My dear friend Ghareeb was killed 6 weeks ago defending Italian Enzo Baldoni on the journey home from taking medicial aid to Najaf. The tragedy has been made worse for his family - living in Kuwait, Jordan and Palestine and unable to get into Iraq - because his body hasn't been found to bury and now because some Italians have been making blatantly false accusations.

Maurizio Scelli, the coordinator of the Italian Red Cross (who opposed taking the desperately needed medical aid to Najaf), has called Ghareeb "a double faced Palestinian who spied for the Israelis" ("doppiogiochista, palestinese spia degli israeliani"). He said on Italian TV that Enzo and Ghareeb were kidnapped because they were on a CIA spy list. Pino Scaccia, a Italian journalist in Iraq, wrote on 30th September "I myself have a lot of doubts about those days and, i'll be honest, on Ghareeb's role. But I swear that I, at least, am not a spy." [I've been in touch with Pino to assuage his doubts and ask him to defend Ghareeb's reputation in the future].

In a recent interview the two Simonas rebuffed these accusations: "For us, Ghareeb was a generous man who often came to us asking for drugs to take sick people"(Simona Pari replies). "He took serious risks in this work. I remember him organising a convoy to Falluja in the days of the worst bombardments on the city. He even managed to get a few wounded people out of that city" (Simona Torretta).

Ghareeb was a generous self-giving man who regularly risked his life for no personal gain to help people. He gave away everything he had and devoted his time and health (he never slept!) to help people ranging children crippled by the war through to naive do-gooder visitors (that's me!). He was committed to the Palestinian cause and longed more than anything to be able to return home one day. His character and his actions do not fit with the accusation that he was a spy, least of all an Israeli one.