A Moroccan man arrested in Italy on suspicion he helped organize the attack on Tunisia’s Bardo Museum had been ordered to leave Italy after having arrived a month earlier with other migrants on a smugglers’ boat, authorities say.
The arrest of Abdelmajid Touil, and details about his voyage to Italy, fueled criticism of Europe’s Mediterranean rescue operations by anti-immigrant politicians, who held it up as evidence that Islamic extremists were slipping into Europe aboard migrant boats to then plot attacks.
This photo released by Italian Police on Wednesday May 20, 2015, shows Touil Abdelmajid, who was arrested Tuesday evening May 19 at the home of his mother in Gaggiano, near Milan. (Italian Police via AP)
Touil was arrested Tuesday night on a Tunisian arrest warrant at the home of his mother and two brothers in Gaggiano, near Milan, anti-terrorism investigator Bruno Megale tells reporters.
The accusations against Touil include premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit attacks against the state, belonging to a terrorist group and recruiting and training others to commit terrorist attacks, Megale says.
“He was wanted internationally for co-participation in, planning and executing the March 18 attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis,” Megale says.
Twenty-two people were killed, four of them Italian.
— AP
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