Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Alberto Zabbialini (seen right with his mother) dropped into an Internet cafe last week and did what millions do at their computers every day, idly keying his name into a search engine.
But the 28-year-old mechanic had more reason than most to be curious after he had fled his home three months earlier in a suicidal mood to carve out a hermit's life on berries and river water in the Ligurian woods, driven by the belief he had contracted HIV.
What he found online was shocking: reams of articles about him pointing out medical tests he had taken actually showed he was in perfect health, desperate appeals from his family and from celebrities to come home, and news of a police dragnet which gripped Italy's attention.
“Is this true I’m not ill? Don't lie to me,” were his first words when he rang his mother Francesca from a call box.
“I said to him 10 times, ‘I swear, you’re fine, just come home’,” she told journalists and camera crews.
Three months on and 10kg lighter, Alberto’s curiosity to know what the world was saying about him won out. “I came down from my wood to an Internet point, put in my name and clicked to find a stream of articles which said I was not ill. At 8pm I called home to find out the truth.”
“When you leave you turn your back, and that is easy,” said his father. “But when you return you need to show your face, and that is much more difficult.”
By Tom Kington
