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IMMIGRATION

Torturing migrants gets Somali man life sentence in Italy

A Somali man who tortured dozens of his compatriots and other migrants in a Libyan camp was sentenced to life in prison by an Italian court on Tuesday.

Torturing migrants gets Somali man life sentence in Italy
The Somali man who tortured dozens of his compatriots and other migrants in a Libyan camp. Photo: Mahmud Turkia/AFP

Osman Matammud, 22, was convicted of murder and multiple counts of torture on the basis of testimony from migrants after he was recognised by chance outside a migrant centre in Milan.

Matammud, who tried to pass himself off as a regular asylum seeker, was arrested in September 2016 after being reported to authorities for using torture to extort money from migrants in a transit camp in Bani Walid, a town in the Libyan desert.

Migrants from sub-Saharan Africa often spend time in such camps while waiting for their families to pay more money to people traffickers who have promised to get them to Europe. Torture is used to speed up and sometimes increase the payments.

A total of 17 victims testified against Matammud in the Milan court, with some saying he had beaten people to death and let others die from a lack of food, water or medical treatment.

Two young women told the court he had raped them.

“Matammud was a case of someone losing all moral compass, of being overcome by a delirious sense of power as a result of having the lives of others in his hands,” lead prosecutor Marcello Tatangelo told the trial last month.

The young Somali man claimed he was just like any other migrant arriving in Italy and had been himself the victim of violent attacks in Libya.

His lawyer portrayed Matammud as being caught up in a war between rival Somali clans. “I've told the truth, I've not lied, nor have I committed any crime,” Matammud said in his final appeal.

Testimonies by the victims left a mark on the investigators. “In a 40-year career, I have never come across horror on the same level, and you have to imagine that what happened in Bani Walid is taking place in every camp,” another prosecutor, Ilda Boccassini, said in January.

IMMIGRATION

France ‘will not welcome migrants’ from Lampedusa: interior minister

France "will not welcome migrants" from the island, Gérald Darmanin has insisted

France 'will not welcome migrants' from Lampedusa: interior minister

France will not welcome any migrants coming from Italy’s Lampedusa, interior minister Gérald Darmanin has said after the Mediterranean island saw record numbers of arrivals.

Some 8,500 people arrived on Lampedusa on 199 boats between Monday and Wednesday last week, according to the UN’s International Organisation for
Migration, prompting European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to travel there Sunday to announce an emergency action plan.

According to Darmanin, Paris told Italy it was “ready to help them return people to countries with which we have good diplomatic relations”, giving the
example of Ivory Coast and Senegal.

But France “will not welcome migrants” from the island, he said, speaking on French television on Tuesday evening.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility.

The recent arrivals on Lampedusa equal more than the whole population of the tiny Italian island.

The mass movement has stoked the immigration debate in France, where political parties in the country’s hung parliament are wrangling over a draft law governing new arrivals.

France is expected to face a call from Pope Francis for greater tolerance towards migrants later this week during a high-profile visit to Mediterranean city Marseille, where the pontiff will meet President Emmanuel Macron and celebrate mass before tens of thousands in a stadium.

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