Rome, April 28 (IANS/AKI) Italian authorities expelled two North Africans accused of supporting jihadist groups and proselytising radical Islam, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.
The first suspect, a 32-year-old Tunisian, who had been living in the Sicilian city of Ragusa without valid residency documents, was deported aboard a flight from Palermo airport, the ministry said.
He had used Facebook and other social networks to share jihadist propaganda with other Islamic extremists and consulted radical material online, Italian anti-terrorism investigators said.
The Tunisian was a follower of one of the masterminds of the Al Jamaa al-Islamiya group which carried out an attack at the Egyptian archaeological site of Luxor in 1997, killing 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians, investigators said.
A 27-year-old Egyptian suspect living in the Lazio town of Latina without legal residency documents was deported from Rome's Fiumicino airport after police held him on Thursday, the Interior Ministry said.
The Egyptian had praised the deadly December attack on a Christmas market in Berlin carried out by Anis Amri, a Tunisian supporter of the Islamic State jihadist group, and had called for more such attacks, according to investigators.
A total of 170 Islamic terrorism suspects have been expelled from Italy since January 2015, the ministry said.
Earlier on Friday, anti-terror police from the southern Italian port city of Brindisi announced the arrest of a Congolese citizen resident in Berlin, Nkanga Lutumba, who is alleged to be a supporter of IS.
--IANS/AKI
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