Italy’s anti-terrorism police and Europol on June 7 arrested Pakistanis suspected of hyperlinks to the person who attacked France’s Charlie Hebdo journal in 2020.
The sting led to “arrests in Italy and abroad of Pakistani citizens with direct ties” to Zaheer Hassan Mahmood, a Pakistani man who attacked two individuals with a meat cleaver weeks after the journal republished controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, Italian police mentioned.
It didn’t say what number of had been arrested.
Europol’s European Counter Terrorism Centre coordinated the operation together with anti-terrorism police in France and Spain, in accordance with police in Genoa in north-west Italy, the place a decide signed 14 arrest warrants regarding offences associated to “international terrorism”.
Genoa’s native II Secolo XIX each day mentioned no less than eight of the arrest warrants had been carried out in Italy towards individuals belonging to “a network of Islamic extremists… who were plotting attacks”.
The probe started in Genoa as a result of one of many suspects lives within the space, however months of “wiretaps, stake-outs, tailing suspects and comparing numerous data with police in other countries” revealed different members of the gang in different elements of Italy, France and Spain, it mentioned.
The investigation continues into others with alleged ties to these focused by Tuesday’s sting, it added.
Mahmood injured two individuals in the course of the 2020 assault, which got here 5 years after 12 members of employees on the satirical weekly had been gunned down for publishing the cartoons, that are thought-about blasphemous by many Muslims.
Source: www.thehindu.com
