Taken. The false passport registered to one of his many aliases did not save him from arrest. When Ilkhomi Sayrakhmonzoda, 32 years old, a citizen of Tajikistan, hit by an international arrest warrant for terrorism, landed at Fiumicino airport yesterday morning, Rome’s Digos agents were waiting for him. They didn’t stop him right away though. They waited to see if anyone had come to pick him up, but when they saw him enter the train station and was about to board a train headed to Termini, they decided to take action. They called him by the name printed on the travel document: “Timor Settarov”, a self-styled citizen of Ukraine. He turned around. “Come with us.” They accompanied him to the Border Police offices and there his true identity was revealed.
THE ALERT ISSUED
The international “red notice” that traced the profile of the mercenary fighter affiliated with ISIS, intercepted in Rome just over two weeks after the massacre at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow, an Islamist attack (of which some Tajiks are accused) was eloquent. which cost the lives of 139 people. The requested person was, in fact, the recipient of a warrant for extradition “for having joined the ranks of the Islamic State and having gone to Syria to fight in 2014”. According to information collected by Interpol, under the name of Ilkhomi Sayrakhmonzoda (but he also called himself Karimov with the same surname) he fought against the local Syrian government forces “as an active member of the terrorist faction of ISIS”. In 2023 he had already been arrested in Belgium and released.
Isis terrorist arrested in Rome, travels in six states: in 2023 stopped (and then released) in Belgium
CASH
A fugitive, he would have traveled around Europe and half the world (from Afghanistan to Iran, from the Emirates to China) with a string of other names, dates of birth and different nationalities, in particular from the states of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, in fact. Faced with the policemen who blocked him yesterday, around 11.45am, he showed that he could speak Russian and Turkish in addition to his mother tongue. When searched, he had two thousand euros in cash with him, while nothing significant was found in the only bag with which he left Eindhoven airport in the Netherlands. He will have to serve a sentence of up to 12 years in prison.
What is certain is that the 32-year-old was not passing through the capital. There was no other booking or ticket listed in his (false) name, no other flight scheduled in the short term. So what was the alleged terrorist doing in Rome? A puzzle for the investigators whose minds immediately went to July 2005 when one of the London Underground bombers was surprised in the capital. The suspicion is that the Eternal City could be a hub or serve as a logistical base for supporters of international terrorism. The investigations on this front are only just beginning. The agents seized the Tajik’s mobile phone from which they hope to extract valuable elements to find out who helped him get to Italy and to identify his contacts and a precise destination address. A possible connection with the events in Moscow? There is no evidence.
THE FOOTPRINTS
In sneakers, jeans and a white t-shirt, despite his fit physique, Sayrakhmonzoda thought he could easily blend in among the thousands of tourists who arrive at Leonardo da Vinci every day. Among them are also many Ukrainian citizens who travel between Italy and their war-torn country. But the turning point for the Digos investigators directed by Antonio Bocelli came by matching passports, fingerprints and other information contained in the databases shared by international law enforcement networks at the gate. «The arrest of a citizen of Tajikistan which took place in Rome thanks to the activity of the State Police represents a very important result, the fruit of the effective prevention activity carried out by our apparatus on the national territory to counter the terrorist threat», he declared the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi. It is confirmation, Piantedosi explained, of the «profitable cooperation with the police forces of other countries. In fact, with our international partners there is a constant sharing of both the information assets and the operational strategies to effectively deal with risk profiles”. The owner of the Interior Ministry then congratulated the Chief of Police, Vittorio Pisani, asking him to extend his appreciation to the personnel of the Prevention Police, the Fiumicino Border Police and the Digos of the Rome police headquarters.
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