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Italy arrests man who planned attacks on ‘non-believers’

Italian police on Monday arrested a man they described as "extremely dangerous", who had reportedly already planned terrorist attacks in Italy and used social media to recruit potential accomplices.

Published: 25 April 2017 10:30 CEST
Updated: 25 April 2017 11:54 CEST

Italy arrests man who planned attacks on 'non-believers'

File photo of Italian police cars: Andreas Solaro/AFP

The 29-year-old had promoted Islamist extremism online, calling in one message for “non-believers” to be “roasted on kebab skewers” and fed to dogs, according to a police report.

A judge for preliminary investigations described him as “an extremely dangerous subject” who posed a “very high risk of moving on to carrying out serious acts of violence”.

The man, who had lived in Italy since 2008, used 'walkie-talkie app' Zello to discuss his plans to carry out an attack in Italy.

According to a report from Rai News, he also shared material about combat techniques, how to throw police investigators off track, and behaviours to adopt in order to become “invisible” while living in a Western country.

In one chat group, he styled himself as the Isis group's spokesperson in Italy, using the nickname 'ibn dawala7', meaning 'son of the state', and swore allegiance to Isis chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

He also shared images of terror group Isis on Facebook, and used social media to praise recent terror attacks across Europe.

Turin police, assisted by Italy's Special Operations Group, arrested the man on Monday afternoon, following seven months of surveillance after an FBI tip-off.

According to investigators, he had been living with an Italian mother and son, who had come to think of him “almost as an adopted child”.

Italy has expelled a total of 31 people from the country over terror links so far this year. In total, the Interior Ministry has ordered the expulsion of 163 people for religious extremism since January 2015.

And at the end of March, the country's police force announced that they had busted a ring which had planned to blow up Venice's famous Rialto Bridge.

The case of Ilaria Salis, 39, has been front-page news in Italy after she appeared in court in January handcuffed and chained, with her feet shackled.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni enjoys cordial relations with Hungary’s Viktor Orban but the case has caused bilateral tensions, with Rome making official complaints on behalf of Salis.

The teacher from Monza, near Milan, was arrested in Budapest in February last year.

Prosecutors allege Salis travelled to Budapest specifically to carry out the attacks against “unsuspecting victims identified as or perceived as far-right sympathisers” to deter “representatives of the far-right movement”.

She was charged with three counts of attempted assault and accused of being part of an extreme left-wing criminal organisation in the wake of a counter-demonstration against an annual neo-Nazi rally.

Salis denies the charges – which could see her jailed for up to 11 years – and claims that she is being persecuted for her political beliefs.

A defiant Salis told Italian newspaper La Stampa via her father in an interview published last week that she was “on the right side of history”.

On Friday, one of the victims and witnesses of one of the attacks are scheduled to testify, according to one of Salis’s Hungarian legal representatives.

Lawyer Gyorgy Magyar complained to AFP ahead of the trial that Salis has not yet received all the case documents in “her native language”.

“The translators promised to finish translating the documents in November, but until that (is done) she will not give any substantial testimony, and rightfully so,” he added.

Salis spent more than 15 months behind bars, but on Thursday was moved to house arrest on a 16 million forints (around 41,000 euros) bail, according to her father Roberto Salis.

Protesters in Milan hold a banner reading “Bring Ilaria Salis home” during a demonstration demanding Salis’s release from prison and against detention conditions in Hungary. (Photo by Piero CRUCIATTI / AFP)

She might be freed before any verdict is rendered on her case, if she is elected as a Member of the European Parliament.

Last month, the Italian Green and Left Alliance (AVS) nominated her as their lead candidate for the upcoming European elections.

If the party garners enough votes at the ballot, Salis might be eligible to access parliamentary immunity, leading to the suspension of the criminal proceedings against her.

Politicised case

The case of Ilaria Salis has been highly politicised, with the Hungarian government frequently commenting on it.

Salis’s father has accused the Hungarian authorities of double standards, claiming that they treated neo-Nazis, who allegedly assaulted anti-fascist activists around the same time, much more leniently.

“In this country, those people are considered patriots while anti-fascists are enemies of the state,” Roberto Salis told AFP.

He claims that his daughter was kept in inhumane prison conditions until January when her case received significant media coverage.

“For eight days, she was kept in a prison in a solitary cell, without being provided with toilet paper, sanitary towels, and soap.

“During that period, she would have needed the sanitary towels… in Italy, we would consider this torture,” Roberto Salis said.

The Council of Europe has criticised Hungary’s overcrowded prisons.

According to Eurostat, Hungary in 2022 recorded the highest prisoner rate per 100,000 people in the EU, followed by Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Hungarian officials have denied accusations of ill-treatment.

Prime Minister Orban’s nationalist government has repeatedly denounced the media for allegedly depicting Salis as a “martyr”, instead pointing to what it called the “brutality” of her alleged crimes.

“What we see here, in a quite outrageous case, is someone committing a brutal and public crime, and the European far-left is standing up for her and even trying to make her an MEP,” Orban’s chief of staff Gergely Gulyas said on Thursday.

“It is incompatible with everything we see as European values, human decency and the necessity of punishing crimes,” he added.

Salis’s father has complained that the Italian government has provided only “limited” help to his daughter.

Italy’s Ambassador to Hungary is expected to attend the trial on Friday, the embassy told AFP.