He was arrested only last Saturday, but the leader of the Palestinian association of Italy Mohammad Hannoun – 64 years old, resident in Genoa since 1983 – has been known to the authorities since at least 1991. In fact, the first information from the DIGOS that spoke of its contacts with the almost newborn Hamas dates back to 35 years ago. The circumstance has already been addressed twice by the court of the Ligurian capital (in 2006 and 2010 and in both cases the investigations – which, like the latter, started from the assumption that the solidarity collections actually serve to subsidize the armed struggle – ended in stalemate: first at the behest of a judge and then at the request of the prosecutor’s office itself, which did not believe it had enough elements to bring to trial. Now however the things have changed: Hannoun is no longer a sympathizer with his contacts – perhaps dangerous, certainly known for decades – but the “top of the Italian cell” of Hamas.
THE FACT is that since the attacks of 7 October 2023, the consideration given to many of the associations operating in the Gaza Strip has changed. Since that date, in fact, the Israeli authorities have included many organizations that have been working in the area for decades on the black list of terrorist groups. Including those that ended up in the investigation that began at the end of 2023 on the initiative of the DNA and culminated on Saturday in the “Domino” operation ordered by the Genoa DDA: 6 arrests, 25 suspects at large and two wanted men currently at large.
IN MARCH of 2006, Hannoun’s position was evaluated by the investigating judge Maurizio De Matteis, who rejected a request for the arrest of the then deputy Nicola Piacente (now head of the Genoa prosecutor’s office) saying that if «from the investigation documents a certain sharing of the ideals of the association in question emerges» on the part of the suspect, the acquaintances and manifestations of sympathy towards Hamas have «little validity as evidence», also because «it is not surprising that militants of the Palestinian cause frequent exponents of the most important Palestinian group.” It should be kept in mind that we are in the aftermath of Hamas’s electoral victory. The investigation, however, in addition to the telephone interceptions which showed the “certain sharing” mentioned above, had failed to find “serious indications” of direct financing of armed struggle activities. And we are talking about conduct that is in every way the same as that which led to the recent judicial raid.
THE JUDGE Carpanini dedicates dozens of pages of his ordinance to reconstructing the history of Hamas and then concluding that “the political wing” and “the military wing” are the same thing and that, therefore, dealing with the former is equivalent to dealing with the latter as well: for this reason it does not matter if the prosecutors have not discovered orders or operational plans that directly link the seized funds to armed groups or violent acts. The paradigm shift that arrived after October 7, 2023 has a lot to do with it: Israel has begun to treat NGOs in the Strip (and beyond) as terrorist organizations, exploiting the fact that working in Gaza inevitably means dealing with Hamas, which totally controls the institutions there. Implementing any form of judicial cooperation with Tel Aviv means accepting this vision of things: the Palestinians – and those who help them – are all terrorists.
THIS IS HOW, since the end of 2023, Hannoun has, for example, seen his personal current accounts (and those of his associations) closed by decision of the banking institutions where they were hosted precisely because they were considered sources of supply for Hamas. This, in any case, explains the large amount of cash seized by the police and the financial police and the activist’s frequent trips to Turkey to deposit these funds (over 8 million euros confiscated in total).
TO SAY that the associations that came under investigation together with Hannoun are linked to Hamas, the investigating judge refers to documentation sent via letter rogatory from Tel Aviv five times between 2003 and 2005 and to other documents provided “spontaneously by the competent Israeli authority on 1 July and 21 August 2025”. This is intelligence information which claims that various associations and bodies, including those cited in the ongoing investigation, are nothing more than “hubs for the financing of Hamas”. And here the provision signed in January 2010 by prosecutor Francesca Nanni comes in handy, as in requesting the dismissal of a terrorism case involving Hannoun, she spoke of the «difficulty, in some cases impossibility, of using the material transmitted by Israel, often collected in the case of actual military operations, without observing the fundamental principles that regulate the acquisition of evidence in our system». After all, in a state of law one should not take at face value what comes from the military apparatus of a country that is waging war.
AND HANGOUND he is expected by the Genoa investigating judge for questioning. He will not answer the questions – “We have not yet received all the documents filed”, say his lawyers Fabio Sommovigo and Emanuele Tambuscio who met him yesterday in the Marassi prison – but will offer spontaneous declarations to say that he can demonstrate the destination of all the funds collected over the years and always destined for civilian structures and never for military ones. The documentation in this regard, however, has already been seized and therefore, paradoxically, is available to the investigators but not to the defenders.
DIFFICILE, given the nature of the accusations, which will change something from the point of view of the precautionary measure. The real game on this will be played at the review court, not before the end of January.
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