Italian victims tortured in Bangladesh cafe attack, autopsies show

Islamist militants tortured a group of Italians before killing them during an attack on a restaurant in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka last week, a legal source said on Wednesday.

A coffin containing the body of one of the nine Italians killed in the Bangladesh attack is carried by pallbearers as it is disembarked from an Italian airplane at Ciampino military airbase, south of Rome, Italy, July 5, 2016. Reuters A coffin containing the body of one of the nine Italians killed in the Bangladesh attack is carried by pallbearers as it is disembarked from an Italian airplane at Ciampino military airbase, south of Rome, Italy, July 5, 2016. Reuters

The bodies of the nine Italians, most of whom worked in the clothing industry, were flown back to Rome on Tuesday.

 

Autopsies showed that many of them had been slashed with knives and had suffered slow deaths. Some had been mutilated, the source said.

 

In all, 20 people died in the Dhaka assault, which started on Friday night. The victims, mostly foreigners, included seven Japanese, one Indian and three Bangladeshis, one of whom was a naturalised US citizen, as well as the Italians.

 

Islamic State said it was responsible for one of the most brazen attacks in Bangladesh's history, posting pictures of the five men they said took part in the onslaught.

Officials said most of the militants had attended prestigious schools or universities in Dhaka and Malaysia. One was the son of a politician.

The Holey Artisan restaurant in Dhaka where the attack took place is popular with foreigners, and investigators in Rome are looking into whether Italians were specifically targeted, a judicial source said.