A 26-year-old Sudanese man was taken into custody by police in Syracuse on charges of aiding and abetting illegal immigration. He arrived in Sicily in February along with other migrants aboard a ship belonging to an NGO. Investigators believe the man is a jailer from a detention camp in Libya.
Sabir A. A., a 26-year-old Sudanese man, recently arrived at the Sant'Anna migrant reception center in Isola Capo Rizzuto in the province of Crotone (southern Italy) after disembarking in Augusta (Sicily). He is now charged with association to commit a crime aimed at favouring illegal immigration.
Thanks to the testimonies they gathered, investigators maintain the Sudanese man was a jailer at a Libyan detention camp where migrants are held and subject to abuse prior to departing for Europe.
Sabir A. A. allegedly participated in the preparatory phases of the sea crossing, keeping order inside the facilities in Libya where the migrants were being held, deprived of their freedom and subjected to violence and threats.
In addition, the suspect allegedly committed psychological and physical abuse against people held at the camp, including with the use of sticks.
26-year-old identified as a jailer in Libya
Police officers in the Sicilian city, who worked together with colleagues from the Crotone police department, took Sabir A. A. into custody with a warrant issued by the Catania anti-mafia police.
Sicilian investigators followed Abdalla's tracks after he completed his period of quarantine aboard the ship Rhapsody and disembarked in the commercial port of Augusta, where he then boarded a bus with other migrants of various nationalities headed for the Calabrian migrant reception center.
The young Sudanese man had just arrived off Sicily in February together with about a hundred other migrants who were rescued by an NGO ship during their crossing from Libya to Italy.
How he joined the trafficking organization
Italian state police investigators gathered various statements from witnesses and victims of violence and abuse committed by the suspect in Libyan detention camps.
From these and other recent accounts regarding the suspect, investigators were able to gather information about how the suspect joined and became involved in the criminal organization headed by Libyan traffickers.
In addition, although there are no clear elements to prove it, investigators reportedly have not excluded the possibility that the suspect's arrival in Italy was organized specifically to provide further "advance discoveries" that would be useful to the organization's future activities, which he would have been a part of.