Rabat – Nadir Benchorfi, a 30-year-old Moroccan man has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack. Agents of Digos, via Thrace in Milan, apprehended Benchorfi in his home where he lived with a roommate, Italian police announced last Monday during a press conference.
“He had expressed his willingness to carry out attacks, but no record indicating imminent execution has been found,” said Commissioner Antonio De Jesu.
De Jesu continued his remarks, saying “What is certain is that the man had links with a terrorist cell composed of 25 foreign fighters living in Germany between 2012 and 2014 when he left to fight in the ranks of ISIS.”
As reported by Italian media outlets, the official police investigation explored numerous forms of communication, eventually leading to the discovery that Benchorfi was preparing to carry out attacks in Italy, based on his conversations with a man in Syria.
Italian media noted that Benchorfi became radicalized during a trip to Germany in 2012, when he worked as a cook’s assistant.
The same sources revealed that Benchorfi was working in a shopping center in the community of Arese. He has a history of sending sums of money to war zones, to “support jihad.”
Benchorfi arrived in Italy at the age of 12. In additional remarks made by police during the press conference, Moroccan witnesses describe the suspect as “a very fragile, highly impressionable person and exposed to delusion of persecution.”
Edited by Constance Guindon
