Islamic Terrorists Linked to Italy Mafia Group
Mon Apr 19, 2004 02:52 PM ET
By Philip Pullella
ROME (Reuters) - Italian investigators have found a link between Islamic
terrorist groups and the Camorra, one of Italy's main organized crime groups, a
top anti-Mafia investigator said Monday.
"We have evidence that groups of the Camorra are implicated in an exchange of
weapons for drugs with terrorist groups," Pierluigi Vigna, Italy's national
anti-mafia prosecutor, told reporters at the foreign press club.
Asked what kind of terrorist groups, he said: "Islamic terrorist groups."
Vigna, whose Rome-based office coordinates the work of magistrates
investigating organized crime in Italy, said he could not give more details.
Pressed further, he suggested the cooperation came about after a member of the
Camorra, the Naples-area version of the Sicilian Mafia, converted to Islam and
met in prison with Muslims who had been arrested in Italy.
Security has been increased throughout Italy in recent weeks for fear of a
possible attack by Islamic terrorists. Precautions for this past Easter week
were on a new scale after the March 11 train blasts that killed 191 people in
Madrid and with the situation in Iraq, where Italy has nearly 3,000 troops.
Two weeks ago, a top anti-terrorism investigator in Milan said militant Islamic
cells scattered across Italy, many of them used to support attacks abroad,
could turn their sights on targets inside the country.
Vigna said links between organized crime and terrorist groups were becoming
common in many countries and warned they may intensify when the European Union
enlarges to 25 countries next month.
He said European investigators and police had to be better coordinated and
called for a European arrest warrant that would make it easier to apprehend
people wanted in another country. Vigna also said an enlarged EU should have
more joint investigations and more representatives of national police forces in
other countries.
He also called for legislation to make it easier for a magistrate from one
country to interrogate someone arrested in another or to seek trans-border
confiscation of property and freezing of bank accounts.
Vigna said the four main organized crime groups in Italy -- the Mafia, the
Camorra, the 'Ndrangheta and the Sacra Corona Unita -- take in some 100 billion
euros ($120 billion) a year from illegal activities.
The most lucrative was drug trafficking, which netted the groups some 59
billion euros, followed by illegal business activities, extortion and loan
sharking, prostitution and arms trafficking
.
|
