Tourist sent home from Iraq for his own safety

Published on Saturday 7 February 2009 18:33

"I AM a tourist," were his first words. The telephone line from Falluja was bad, but there could be no mistake. Falluja's first western traveller was in town.

Not for long, however. An Iraqi checkpoint guard spotted the tourist, Luca Marchio, among Iraqi passengers in a public minibus heading from Baghdad to the once notorious – and still tense – city and alerted his superiors.

Soon, Marchio, 33, from Como, Italy, found himself in the Falluja police headquarters surrounded by bewildered Iraqi officers trying to figure out why a westerner would wander around this city without a translator or guards.

He was interviewed last week and brushed away all concerns for his safety and offers of help.

"I am a tourist. I want to see the most important cities in the country. That is the reason why I am here now," he said.

"I want to see and understand the reality because I have never been here before, and I think every country in the world must be seen."

Marchio said he had intended on staying overnight in Falluja, but was forced to alter his travel plans. "The authorities explained to me that it was impossible because there are not any hotels here. They suggested a short tour and then go back to Baghdad."

Piecing together an unusual travel itinerary from an unperturbed Marchio, incredulous Iraqi and Italian officials told the strange story of an accidental tourist.

Marchio had travelled from Italy to Egypt, then to Turkey, and from there to northern Iraq over land. A photocopy of his passport shows that he obtained a 10-day visa and crossed the border from Turkey to Kurdistan.

Then came a 200-mile journey by taxi from Erbil, the Kurdistan regional capital, to Baghdad, where a startled Bashar Yacoub, reception manager at the Coral Palace – a hotel that had not had a western visitor since the American invasion in 2003 – took his details.

"He told us he just wanted to see Baghdad," Yacoub said.

The next morning he set out for Falluja despite the hotel staff's efforts to dissuade him, insisting on taking a public bus to the city, 40 miles west of Baghdad.

Within hours, the hotel staff received a call from the Falluja police. "I wasn't surprised when they called," Yacoub said. "They were very worried about him."

Police summoned Iraqi journalists to tell them about the wandering Italian, American marines were called in, the Italian embassy was notified. The police concluded that Marchio was not an Italian jihadist and was a risk to no-one but himself.

On Friday night he was being held for his own safety, the Iraqi police said.

"He will leave with the earliest flight tomorrow morning," said Renato Di Porcia, the deputy chief of mission at the Italian embassy in Baghdad.

Di Porcia said that the Italian foreign ministry's official advice for travellers is not to visit Iraq, and for those who must, "a security framework" is a necessity.

Marchio said: "It was quite a strange situation. I am looking forward to visiting all the beautiful places around Iraq, but I think not yet."