How Pakistanis Get Refugee Status in Italy And How Italy Get Its Lashkar-e-Taiba Terror Cells
By
Francesca Marino
21 Sep 2020
Pakistan
State continues to have training camps (for terrorists) – alive, running, and
kicking – in PoK, and has had them for the last couple of years, despite all
their denials and their mocking of all evidence offered by experts and
journalists.
A statement
by the Tribunal of Perugia (sentence number Nr. 3213\2019 R.G. 30 June 2020)
regarding a refugee case, says: “In the appeal it is deduced that Ali (surname
not given for obvious reasons), was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, where
he earned the title of mechanical engineer and worked as a freelance professional;
that he is of Sunni Muslim religion, and in 2015, attended a course in which
Islamic rules were imparted; in 2017 he went to Kashmir to attend a course of
the aforementioned group; he was taken to a centre of training – the course
consisted of physical training and use of weapons for the purpose of jihad. He
finished the course and returned home. Subsequently, the Islamist group
‘Lashkar-e-Taiba’ asked him to join them. The applicant made excuses to reject
the invitation; this drew their wrath. When he learned that they were planning
his kidnapping, he decided to leave Pakistan for Italy”.
This, in
the convoluted language of an Italian Tribunal sentence, is the story of Ali,
who was recently granted ‘refugee status’ by a Tribunal in Perugia, Italy – and
is an interesting story for many reasons.
How A
Pakistani In Italy ‘Lived Off’ Taxpayers’ Money While ‘Preaching’ Against’ The
West
According
to Ali, he had joined an Islamic ‘integration centre’ in Karachi of his own
will; went to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir to join a jihadi training camp of his
own accord, and then, back in Karachi, LeT members had been trying to convince
him to join their ranks. He had apparently already joined the group the minute
he went to the training camp. When he tried to ‘give up’ jihad, according to
his fantastic story, LeT and the ISI planned to kidnap him.
Alerted by
a whistle-blower, he decided to flee to Italy where he asked for political
asylum. A first sentence denied him any kind of asylum or refugee status
because the story was – frankly – full of holes – but then the guy found a good
lawyer, appealed against the sentence, and found a 'good' judge. Somebody even
‘reported’ his judgment on the Wikipedia page on the LeT, without further
interrogation of the petitioner and without even considering the past cases in
Italy.
The most
well-known such case, about someone of Pakistani origin, is that of Hafiz
Muhammad Zulkifal, the so-called ‘spiritual guide’ of a Lashkar-e-Taiba cell,
who was arrested by the Italian police in 2015.
The imam
lived with a large family in a small house in the Bergamo area. For the tax
office, he had ‘no properties’, and his income ‘was not enough’ to support all
his siblings, so he had been living off of Italian taxpayers’ money for almost
twenty years, while preaching against ‘kafirs’ and the ‘western way of life’,
and training a jihadi cell. Hafiz was getting state subsidies for the house
rent, subsidies for the schooling of his children, in addition to the family
bonuses for large families. And he is not the only one.
“Many
Pakistanis who apply for asylum,” says a Pakistani journalist living in exile,
“apply four or five times – giving different names each time. They arrive via
Turkey or Greece and go directly to a refugee camp, without a passport, and
without giving their real names. Families and smugglers advise them to talk as
little as they can and to say they are being persecuted by the Taliban or other
jihadi groups. Or to say they belong to a persecuted minority”.
“Truth is,”
says one of the official cultural mediators at a refugee camp, a Pakistani
himself, “They are all Punjabis, and I've never seen, except a few Ahmadiyyas,
somebody belonging to a persecuted minority.” According to people living in the
same refugee camp, they often attack individuals belonging to minorities and
those they deem as ‘Kafirs’.
After
asylum is granted, often on grounds of so-called ‘humanitarian reasons’, they
join members of their family or their community. And this is how Italy – in all
likelihood – gets its Lashkar-e-Taiba cells.
Italy –
A ‘Privileged Hub’ For Terrorists & Criminals?
In 2016, a
handful of Pakistani citizens were arrested and repatriated due to links with
terrorist organisations. In 2019, a huge police operation in the north of Italy
highlighted an 8 million Euro network of money illegally sent by a Pakistani to
terrorist organisations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to reports from
the Italian Intelligence: “Pakistani nationals arrived in Italy with no money
on immigrant boats and with no significant economic background, and they
suddenly became entrepreneurs.”
According
to sources, these people, strictly with no criminal record, have been
approached by members of the community, indoctrinated and then protected by
foreign agents and placed into the Islamic community.
The same
intelligence report highlighted that the funding, done by a Pakistani money
sender, were intended “not only for radical Islamist jihadist groups acting
against the West, but also for entities, supported by ISI, that operated and
still operate in India.” Pakistani embassies refuse – more often than not – to
co-operate with intelligence agencies and the police when asked to identify
people; so, Italy remains a ‘privileged hub’ for jihadis and criminals.
----
Francesca
Marino is a journalist and a South Asia expert who has written ‘Apocalypse
Pakistan’ with B Natale.
(This is
an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The New
Age Islam neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
Original
Headline: The Pakistan-Perugia Connection: How Italy Gets Its Lashkar Cells
Source: The Quint
URL: https://newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/how-pakistanis-get-refugee-status/d/122916
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