Militant Who Hated Christians Killed UN Envoy, Video Alleges

(ANS) – An Egyptian militant with hatred towards Christians, who once played hockey for a top Italian club, was the suicide driver who took a lorry loaded with explosives into the United Nations compound which killed its top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 other people last August, the Guardian newspaper reported Saturday, July 10. Its website said it had obtained a video tape which attempts “to glorify several suicide bombers who have died in Iraq over the past year”, including Abu Farida al-Masri, described as Egyptian, who had a history of violent attacks. “On his return from Italy he ran several operations against filthy Egyptian Coptic Christians, who were specializing in removing the virginity of Muslim women,” the Guardian quoted the tape as saying. Abu Farida also was said to have told friends later he had a dream that “God will give me the head of a Christian.” “The tape then says that the dream came true with the killing of Mr. de Mello with the use of a lorry containing several tons of explosives, the Guardian reported from Baghdad .