Headlines
Italian convert 'key figure' among 10 IS militants arrested
Milan, July 1
An Italian woman who
converted to Islam and joined the Islamic State (IS) in Syria is at the
centre of an operation in Italy and Albania that led to the arrests on
Wednesday of 10 of the Sunni radical group's suspected supporters,
investigators said.
Maria Giulia Sergio, 28, from Torre del
Greco, near Naples, and her Albanian husband joined IS in Syria last
September after Sergio converted to Islam in 2009 and took the name
Fatima, according to investigators.
Investigators in what is the
first probe of IS in Italy and among the first of the group in Europe
managed to trace the couple's journey and gained key insights into the
recruitment and movements of jihadis, according to police.
Intercepts
by investigators in the probe identified "an important IS figure" --
its coordinator of foreign fighters from Europe -- prosecutor Maurizio
Romanelli told journalists.
Sergio's father, mother and sister,
who live in Inzago near Milan were among four Italians arrested in
Wednesday's operation carried out in three Italian cities, police said.
Sergio's
father had allegedly been radicalised by his daughter, had left his job
and was planning to join her in Syria using his severance pay and money
from selling the family's furniture on the internet, investigators
said.
The suspects issued with arrest warrants included four
Italians, five Albanians and one Canadian, of whom four were believed to
be in Syria and one in another unspecified Arab country, police said.
The role of the Canadian citizen was not clear from the police statement.
Searches
and arrests were carried out in the northern cities of Milan and
Bergamo and in the Tuscan city of Grosseto, where the family of Sergio's
Albanian husband lives, and where he and Sergio stayed before leaving
for Syria, according to investigators.