[3][4] Cupertino, Agliana and Stefio would later be freed in a bloodless raid by U.S. troops, which Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said he had approved beforehand.
[5] On 20 March 2006, Quattrocchi was posthumously honored by the Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi with the Gold Medal for Civil Valour, after a proposal by the Home Secretary Giuseppe Pisanu.
[citation needed] Quattrocchi's death became a highly divisive issue among the Italian public, which, despite widespread loathing of both Saddam Hussein's late regime and Islamist fundamentalism was mostly averse to participation in the Iraq war.
Similarly, Sgrena remarked, neither was Enzo Baldoni, another Italian journalist kidnapped and killed in Iraq, awarded any honour.
[citation needed] As the leftist side was not enthusiastic about the award, the rightist parties Alleanza Nazionale and Forza Italia (Silvio Berlusconi's movement at that time), insisted in their PR campaigns that Quattrocchi was a hero.