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TUNISIA

Flags at half mast for Tunis victims’ funerals

Italy's national flag will hang at half mast across the country on Monday, to mark the funerals of four Italians killed last week in a terrorist attack at Tunisia's Bardo Museum.

Published: 23 March 2015 10:20 CET
Flags at half mast for Tunis victims' funerals
A policeman stands next to wreath of flowers at the entrance of Turin's city hall on March 20th. Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP

The sign of mourning was on Monday morning visible at Italy’s state buildings including those in Turin, the home of two of the victims killed by Islamic extremists last Wednesday.

The bodies of Antonella Sesino and Orazio Conte, both 54, lay in state at city hall on Sunday, a day after being flown from the Tunisian capital to Turin.

Both had direct connections to the north-western city; Sesino worked at Turin’s city hall whereas Conte, an IT worker, was married to one of its employees.

The two other Italians also hailed from northern Italy. Francesco Caldara, 64, was from Novara, while 72-year-old Giuseppina Biella lived in Meda near Milan, Italian media reported.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Saturday joined the victims’ relatives in Rome for the repatriation of the four bodies, before they continued their journey north.

Government representatives will be present at the funerals taking place on Monday, Rai News said.

The Italians were amongst 21 people killed in Tunis when gunmen opened fire on tourists arriving at the Bardo Museum. French, Spanish and Japanese visitors were among the victims.  

Bardo Museum photo by Salah Habibi/AFP

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TERRORISM

Update: Court rules to bring deported ‘bin Laden bodyguard’ back to Germany

A German court ruled late on Friday to reverse the deportation of a Tunisian man who allegedly served as a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden.

Published: 13 July 2018 14:16 CEST
Updated: 13 July 2018 17:49 CEST
Update: Court rules to bring deported 'bin Laden bodyguard' back to Germany
Sami A. was deported to Tunisia from Düsseldorf airport on Friday morning. Photo: DPA

The 42-year-old, identified only as Sami A., should be brought back to Germany, the administrative court in Gelsenkirchen ruled on Friday evening, just hours after news broke he had already been deported to Tunisia.

The court said Sami A.'s deportation had been “grossly unlawful,” Die Welt newspaper reported, because Germany had received no guarantees from Tunisia that he would not be tortured on arrival.

Sami A. had lived in Germany for more than two decades, but outrage over his presence grew in recent months as Germany cracks down on failed asylum seekers.

News had broken earlier on Friday of his deportation.

“I can confirm that Sami A. was sent back to Tunisia this morning and handed over to Tunisian authorities,” interior ministry spokeswoman Annegret Korff told reporters, following a report in the top-selling Bild newspaper.

Sami A. had previously successfully argued against his deportation, saying  he risked being tortured in his homeland.

A court in the city of Gelsenkirchen ruled against the deportation late Thursday, upholding the assessment that the suspect potentially faced “torture and inhumane treatment”. 

However the decision only reached federal authorities – by fax – on  Friday morning, after Sami A.'s flight to Tunisia had taken off, DPA news agency reported.

Considered a security threat over his suspected ties to Islamist groups, Sami A. has for years had to report to police but was never charged with an offense.

He has always denied being the former bodyguard of late Al-Qaeda leader bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks on the United States. 

Judges in a 2015 terror case in the German city of Muenster however said they believed Sami A. underwent military training at an Al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan in 1999 and 2000 and belonged to bin Laden's team of guards.

German authorities first rejected Sami A.'s asylum request in 2007 but prosecutors' efforts to expel him were repeatedly blocked by courts citing the danger of torture in Tunisia.

An unrelated court ruling last month involving another Tunisian man – accused over a 2015 attack on Tunis' Bardo museum – helped pave the way for Sami A.'s expulsion.

In that instance, German judges found that the accused did not face the threat of the death penalty as Tunis has had a moratorium on implementing capital punishment since 1991.

Germany's hardline interior minister, Horst Seehofer, seized on the precedent to say he hoped Sami A. would be next, calling on migration officers to make the case “a priority”.

Bild led a vocal campaign against Sami A.'s presence in Germany, with  revelations that he collects nearly 1,200 euros ($1,400) a month in welfare  sparking particular outrage.

Sami A. has a wife and children who are German citizens.

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