In the investigation into the terrorist attack in which two Swedish nationals were killed in Brussels in October 2023, the Italian anti-terrorist police carried out searches targeting 18 people on Tuesday.
The operation concerned "18 people of North African origin" living in the Italian cities of Bologna, Palermo, Rome and Turin, according to a press release by the anti-terrorist department of the Bologna Public Prosecutor's Office.
The searches were part of the investigations carried out by the Belgian police and the EU's police agency Europol, following the terrorist attack by Abdesalem Lassoued, a 45-year-old Tunisian man, who killed two Swedes who had come to Belgium to support their national football team on 16 October. Lassoued was shot dead by Belgian police the following day.
The searches carried out in Italy should make it possible to identify "the contacts maintained by the perpetrator of the terrorist attack, who had lived in Italy from 2012 to 2016," according to the Italian police statement.
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The 18 people targeted "belong to the circle of virtual relations" of the attacker, and publish "content characteristic of religious extremist circles" on social networks, the police stressed, adding that expulsion orders from Italian territory had already been issued in this investigation.
In a message posted to social media right before the attack, Lassoued reportedly linked his actions to recent demonstrations in Sweden in which copies of the Koran were burnt. On 17 October, the Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the attack.
