The ObserverWorld newsItaly's farewell to murdered toddler
With tears and solemn applause from mourners, Italy bid an emotional farewell yesterday to a 17-month-old toddler killed during a botched kidnapping.
Up to 50,000 people held up photographs of smiling, curly-haired Tommaso Onofri as his tiny white coffin, covered in lilies and daisies, was carried into Parma cathedral.
Among the messages of condolence sent to his parents was one from Pope Benedict XVI, who described the child's murder as an 'abominable crime'.
Tommaso was having dinner with his parents and eight-year-old brother on 2 March when the electricity to their home in northern Italy was cut. Two armed men bound and gagged the family and hauled Tommaso out of his high chair.
Police were puzzled as to the motive for the kidnap since the family did not appear to be wealthy, and the case gained even greater urgency when it was revealed the little boy was severely epileptic and needed daily doses of medicine. His distraught mother Paola made direct appeals to the kidnappers on television, pleading with them to give her son the medicine he needed. Doctors even broadcast detailed information about how it had to be administered.
The Pope, politicians, entertainers and soccer stars called for the baby's return, but in vain. He was killed half an hour after his kidnap, apparently because he was crying, and police were later led to where he had been buried in a shallow grave. It emerged the kidnappers had planned to force the boy's father, the manager of a post office, to hand over a million-euro ransom.
Police are still investigating the circumstances of the kidnap but have arrested three people, one of whom had done building work on the family's home. Two of the men detained blame each other for the baby's death and are each accused of murder. A female suspect is accused of complicity in the kidnapping and another man is under investigation.
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