ASIA/JORDAN - Today masses and prayers in churches for the pilot burned alive by jihadists

Wednesday, 4 February 2015

Amman (Agenzia Fides) - At midday today, Wednesday, February 4, the bells of all the Catholic churches scattered throughout the Hashemite Kingdom will ring in sign of mourning for the gruesome killing of Muath al-Kaseasbeh, the 26-year-old Jordanian pilot who ended up in the hands of the jihadists of the Islamic State and was burned alive on 3 January after soaking him with petrol while he was locked in a cage. The video of the barbaric execution was released yesterday. This was reported to Agenzia Fides by Archbishop Laroun Lahham, Patriarchal Vicar for Jordan of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. " Today at 6 pm - adds Archbishop Lahham - all Jordanian parishes will celebrate Masses and recite prayers for the soldier. Then an official delegation of the Catholic Church will travel to present their condolences to the family and the tribe to which Muath belonged".
The execution of the pilot sparked a wave of outrage across the country. The pilot was captured on December 24 in Raqqa, after his plane had crashed. After the release of the video, the Jordanian government executed jihadists Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouli, inmates in the prisons of the Kingdom. The woman had been sentenced to death for her role in the attacks in 2005 in Amman, which killed 60 people, and in recent days had been at the center of a negotiation between the Jordanian government and the militia of the Islamic State, with the aim of releasing the pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh (who in fact had already been executed a few days after his capture). (GV) Fides 04/02/2015)


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