The true story of “how an Italian dies”

by Alessanndro Milan – When she looks back and thinks about what she went through fifteen years ago, Valeria Castellani says it was “an incredible adventure, where I understood my limits but also experienced a level of humanity that I have never found again”. Valeria Castellani was the only Italian woman who worked as security contractor in Iraq. She worked with Fabrizio Quattrocchi, the Italian contractor who was kidnapped and beheaded in 2004 and Iraq. It seems he was killed because he allegedly was the owner of a computer containing pictures regarding operations against Muslims. But that computer was not Fabrizio’s.

Born in Vicenza, 44 years old, currently working as Security Manager for a multinational company, back in 2003-2004 Valeria Castellani worked in both Afghanistan and Iraq, first as humanitarian operator, then as the sole Italian woman in the security contractor sector. Those were the years of the war on the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. Castellani witnessed major dramatic events that appeared on the news of the time, such as the kidnapping of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta and the killing of Fabrizio Quattrocchi. “His death had a destructive impact on me”, she said. After graduating in Law, I started travelling abroad for business, to Czech Republic and Russia. I was involved in a project on the opening of a gas terminal in the Krasnodar area, Black Sea. I worked side-to-side with Chinese and Indian people… it was a challenging job.

Then?
After 9/11 and the Twin Towers attack, the project in Russia was frozen and the economy was paralyzed.

You had to reinvent yourself.

That day changed my life. I literally asked myself “what can I do?” I am not a quiet person — tranquility bores me. I need to end my day and be able to say to myself, “Today I have learned something new”. At the time, I was 26/27 years old, and I was ready for a significant step in my life.

What did you do?

I had friends who were working in the humanitarian sector. At that time, I had a rather naïve vision of the world, and that field was extremely appealing to me. I truly thought I could offer my energies at the service of other people, to help them.

Isn’t it the same feeling as humanitarian operators in general?

Let’s skip discussing this.

Maybe you can explain to me later. Where does your new life start?

In Afghanistan. I travelled to Kabul in June 2003 as Assistant to the INTERSOS Head of Mission. However, since there was no Head of Mission there, a few days after my arrival to Kabul I was relocated a new project in Kandahar, to participate to the coordination of the opening of an IDPs Camp (International Displaced People). There were Afghans who had lost everything during the war and were accommodated in the camp waiting to go back to their homes.

At the time, Kandahar was the reign of the Mullah Omar and the Talibans. What do you remember of the impact with that reality?

I remember dust, dust everywhere. As we were landing on a small aircraft of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) I thought “Where is the city?”. All I could see were desert and dust.

And then?

I remember the hunger I used to feel, the real hunger. There were no supplies. We used to go the local market to get some good chicken, but it was usually too skinny, with little meat to eat. There was a lot of watermelon and grape — nothing else. When I think at that time, I remember the grip of hunger when I was in bed at night. But I also remember the eyes of the people at the IDPs Camp. Different ethnic groups, and children with nothing but great smiles. There I met Paolo.

Paolo Simeone, former Italian Navy special forces.

And former French Foreign legionnaire. In Kandahar, he was working for INTERSOS in a demining project. He trained me on shooting.

Unusual for a humanitarian operator.

I did not want to learn how to use a weapon to use it against others, but to shoot myself in case I were kidnapped.

That was an actual risk.

Hostility was in the air. Not so much from the local population, but from the authorities. Just imagine, a woman there: they did not look at me in the eyes, they did not even shake hands with me. Once I asked an Afghan woman working with us if she was happy to wear the hijab. One of the Afghan men working with us, upon hearing my question looked at me and said that such questions better not be asked”.

How did you move from Afghanistan to Iraq?

I left Kandahar nauseated. It was around 60 degrees C, there was very scarce food and drinking water; however, at their Headquarters, UNICEF humanitarian operators organized a pool party and happy hour every Friday, with plenty of alcohol and joints.

What did you think when you saw that?

Sincerely? “Fuck off!” Another time, while in Angola on another humanitarian mission for an NGO, I heard a humanitarian operator, a woman, complaining about local personnel not being good enough anymore. A lot of these people are nobody in their country, and in these situations they find a way of becoming someone. Abroad they have cooks, drivers, house staff. Then, if you are not one of them, you get cut out.

One of them?

If you are not “leftist”.

Then you moved to Iraq.

I arrived in summer 2003 for an NGO, “Unponteper…”.

The same one as Simona Pari and Simona Torretta.

Exactly. However, they were based in Baghdad. Initially I was based in Basra instead, where I worked at a program for the sensitization on the importance of water sanitization and for the reactivation of the dates trade. A turning point happened during those months.

That is?

Paolo understood the importance of the emerging business of private security as the situation was fast becoming more and more dangerous; reconstruction was attracting huge assets and people from all over the world, and they all needed protection.

As a matter of fact, that was the time of kidnappings. As the one of the two Simona.

Yes.

You sound laconic.

I met both of them.

And?

That was a kidnapping with grey areas. Rumors had it that Simona Torretta was in a relationship with an Iraqi man and there were suspicious comments on her kidnapping in Baghdad. US intelligence sources were spreading some doubt regarding the different phases of the kidnapping. But I do not know more than this.

Do you know more about the Quattrocchi case?

Sure. Fabrizio used to work with us. With me, Paolo, Alessandro, Cristiano. We were a group of eight Italians. All security contractors.

Isn’t it unusual to move from the world of NGOs to the paramilitary world?

Is it more humanitarian to work at demining projects as Paolo did or to party at swimming pools in Kandahar? I have met good and shitty people both in the military and in the humanitarian world. Hypocrites though, strictly in NGOs.

So you changed sector.

Yes, but only after all the necessary steps. The CIA conducted a background check on each one of us and released the authorization to work for the US Department of Defense.

The Pentagon?

Exactly. We were authorized to enter any US military base in the world. Armed. This should serve as a hint at the fact that we were somehow reliable, I guess.

Let’s talk about the Quattrocchi case.

At the time we were based at the Babylon hotel in Baghdad. We were protecting civilians working under dangerous conditions. Contractors were paid cash, 600 bucks a day, and tax free, since no there was no treasury in war. This fact surely attracted people looking for easy money. Like those three…

Who?

Salvatore Stefio, Umberto Cupertino and Maurizio Agliana. When I saw them I thought, “and these ones, where do they come from?”. They definitely had no standing for that job.

Then?

We gave them our weapons and asked them to disassemble and then reassemble them. They did not even know where to start from. Totally incapable of managing weapons. We then decided to send them back home, but that very day large riots started in and outside Baghdad, and we were stuck in the hotel for a week.

Let’s go to the 12thh of April.

That day Fabrizio Quattrocchi escorted them to Jordan to take them back home. They were kidnapped on their way to the airport.

Quattrocchi tells his kidnappers and executers, “I’ll show you how an Italian dies”.

Right. In that same video, someone replies to him in Italian.

Who is this person?

Who knows. I can only make assumptions. In those days, an Iraqi man speaking fluent Italian used to come to our hotel. He was the same person who organized their transfer to Jordan. Oddly, he chose just one, flamboyant and easy to spot vehicle instead of two anonymous taxis.

Why did the kidnappers kill Quattrocchi?

According to one of the kidnappers – who got arrested by the British two years later – it was because Fabrizio had a computer with photos of military operations in Nigeria and Bosnia, places where Muslims had been killed.

Is it true?

Fabrizio had never been to either Nigeria or Bosnia and was completely computer illiterate. That computer wasn’t his. And he couldn’t neither speak or understand English.

How did you react to Quattrocchi’s death?

It was horrible. I was informed before anyone else by one of our embassy’s officials. On April 13th I took part to an elderly assembly of the heads of Falluja tribes. We were welcomed into a house and they were all sitting along the walls of a huge living-room, on what resembled to thrones. I had informed the Italian embassy of the meeting – that had been organized by a friend in the British intelligence – but they refused to send anyone. We were trying to save Fabrizio and the elderly gave us assurance. Instead, he was killed.

Again, why?

There were strange rumors those days, about possible kidnappings of other Italians. Perhaps they were only rumors.

What you ended up being investigated in Italy.< Right. Because I had allegedly committed the crime, together with Paolo, of having recruited armed personnel abroad. They call you mercenaries.

It is enough to search that word on the dictionary. A mercenary is a person who takes up arms and fights abroad against a sovereign state. We were simply providing security for civilians working in a war zone and wanted to come home safe. The investigation on us has been archived, but I had to undergo years of accusations. For months following Fabrizio’s death I wasn’t able to sleep. We were covered in shame, and we lost our jobs.

When did you say to yourself, “Enough”?

One morning I was on a mission in Baghdad, and I said to myself, “Please, don’t attack us today because I really don’t feel like shooting”. I understood then that I had reached the end of the line.

What do you have left, today, of those years?