Adnan Siddique was stabbed to death on June 3 in his apartment in the Sicilian city of Caltanissetta. Investigators say he was murdered because he was protecting farmworkers who were being exploited by gangmasters.
The parents of Adnan Siddique, who live in poverty in the Pakistani city of Lahore with eight children, had great hopes for their son. The 32-year-old arrived in Italy five years ago and had soon found a job as a maintenance worker for textile machinery in Caltanissetta, and settled in to what has been described as a "normal life."
Four days ago though, he was found dead in his apartment. Investigators, who arrested five Pakistani nationals for the murder, believe that Adnan Siddique was killed as a form of punishment because he defended a number of farmworkers, also Pakistani nationals, who were being exploited by gangmasters in the fields around Agrigento and Caltanissetta.
Victim was targeted for helping farmhands report their exploiters
According to Italy's Carabinieri police force, the five suspects were forcing the farmworkers to give them half of their income. After hearing their story, Siddique had allegedly accompanied one of the migrant farmworkers to the police to file a complaint, investigative sources said.
He was subsequently threatened and attacked by the alleged gangmasters before being found murdered in his apartment in Via San Cataldo.
After hearing screams and cries for help, his neighbors called the police. The victim died shortly after being stabbed five times with a 30-cm-long knife, said investigators.
Carabinieri police rushed to the scene in an attempt to locate the alleged killers, who had reportedly fled to a home nearby. Two of them were found with blood on their clothes, investigative sources said. Two others were filmed by surveillance cameras near the crime scene and were arrested on June 4 in Canicatti, near Agrigento.
Worried by threats
The Preliminary investigations judge (GIP) Gigi Omar Modica questioned the four murder suspects: Muhammad S, 27, Alì S, 32, Muhammed B, 21, and Imrad C, 40.
Muhammad M, 48, was also questioned for allegedly helping the four commit the murder. The owners of a local bar who knew the victim said Siddique was a very well-educated and kind man who was concerned by the threats he was receiving. "Once he ended up in hospital after being beaten up," said bar owners.
A 32-year-old Pakistani national, who has a fruit and vegetable stall nearby and who knew the victim, also said he was a "very good person." He said the suspected killers were known to "get drunk often." They "sometimes worked in the fields but then spent their time getting drunk and partying," he told reporters.
Adnan had reportedly confided in a cousin who lives in Pakistan. He apparently told the cousin that he had "defended a person and was being threatened for this reason." He said that he wanted to return to Pakistan for a short holiday, but now, the cousin told reporters, the family will never see him again. "We don't even know how we can get his body returned to Pakistan. We are poor people, we only want justice," the cousin concluded sadly.