CROTONE – It is essentially a confession that of the Syrian Mohamed Abdessalem, 27 years old, perhaps one of the organizers of the tragic crossing that ended with a shipwreck in Steccato di Cutro, where, in February 2023, 100 migrants died: the accused filed spontaneous declarations with which he admits his responsibilities as a smuggler. Abdessalem, assisted by lawyer Vincenza Raganato, says he escaped from Syria and reached Turkey to escape military conscription in a context in which murders, torture and human rights violations occur. The accused, who chose the shortened procedure, admits that he took part in this and other journeys of hope for economic reasons, in order to help his family who lives in poverty. The judge Assunta Palumbo appointed an interpreter in order to verify the correspondence of the document with what he actually declared.
The man, it will be remembered, was arrested last December on charges of negligent shipwreck, aiding and abetting illegal immigration and death as a consequence of another crime after being recognized by some of the migrants who survived the massacre, thanks to images taken from telephones. mobile phones. That man in the cabin, sitting on the control panel with his face turned downwards, was the same one depicted in the identification cards shown by the investigators. He was neither among the survivors nor among the victims of the shipwreck because he was at the helm, according to at least seven testimonies. The rest came from the collaboration of an inmate of the Lecce prison, where Abdessalem was held because he was accused of being part of an organization dedicated to migrant trafficking dismantled with Operation Astrolabe. There he was notified of the restrictive measure.
The man told the investigators that one of the smugglers, of Syrian nationality, had managed to escape to Germany after the Cutro shipwreck and had then been arrested in Germany for aiding and abetting illegal immigration and then extradited and detained in that penitentiary. It all coincided, because Abdessalem had been handed over to the Italian authorities at Fiumicino airport on April 5th. The images also coincided. And the statements of the survivors, heard in March and heard again in October by the investigators of the Flying Squad of the Police Headquarters, coincided.
The indictment by prosecutor Pasquale Festa, who had requested and obtained immediate judgment, is set for June 27th. Another alleged smuggler from the Cutro massacre who had fled abroad is the one who was identified in Austria: he is Gun Ufuk, already sentenced to 20 years in an abbreviated sentence. Ufuk and Abdessalem join three others arrested immediately: the Turk, Sami Fuat, believed to be the captain, and two Pakistani facilitators, Khalid Arslan, and Ishaq Hassnan (initially declared a minor but then unmasked), for whom the trial is pending with ordinary rite.
