FIRST-LINE PRACTITIONERS

Description

Most of the information comes from statements of the missing-minors report; during the execution of summary testimonial information (SIT) in front of the police officers; and with the spontaneous declarations of the interested party (abductor).
Syrian couple living in Italy with 5 children. The couple get a divorce and the wife moved abroad (Scandinavia) together with the children. In the meanwhile, the husband gets married again and the new couple have a child.
AUGUST 2014: complaint of first abduction by the first wife. The children were brought from Scandinavia (where the first wife was living with them) to Syria. In January 2015 she managed to bring them back home in Scandinavia;
MAY 2015: they get a divorce.
JUNE 2016: second complaint of children abduction by the Scandinavia Police. The women went directly to the judicial authority. Appeal by the Juvenile Court.
BEGIN OF JULY 2016: complaint at the Italian Commissariat that consequently transmitted the documents to the Police Headquarters of the Italian city where the children had been traced, together with the husband; subsequently, the Italian police forces went to the abductor's house and the children were actually there; they were taken to the police station, and his passport got confiscated (fake or true passport?).
JULY 2016: Appeal was rejected (wrongly) by the Juvenile Court TM for ineligibility, since for the Italian Court, the former wife (offended party) should have reported the abduction to the Central Authority of the Scandinavian city in which the children were resident.
END OF JULY 2016: Former wife lodge complaint this time to the Central Authority in Scandinavia, which quickly communicated the complaint to the Central Authority in Italy.
In the meanwhile, a DIGOS agent was approached by the second wife of the abductor, who reported that her husband was a sympathizer of ISIS, the self-proclaimed "Islamic state" and one of her brothers was already a fighter in Syria. The brother told her that her husband participated in a military action against the BASHAR AL ASSAD’s Syrian army and confirmed his statements showing her videos on YouTube, where the two brothers were shooting wearing uniforms. They seemed to be fighters of AHRAR AL SHAM. On the uniform there were signs belonging to the free Syrian army.
The brother was already known by DIGOS, since he publicly declared that he had taken part in the Syrian war again Al-Assad regime.
AUGUST 2016: Appeal by Prosecutor Officer to the juvenile Tribunal and provisional order from the Juvenile Court for the second wife and her child. In the Provisional Order was decided to re-place the wife and the child in a protected place, with registration in the border lists in order to prevent their expatriation.
AUGUST 2016: the first wife, appellant, deliveries (thanks to her lawyer) some audio files, where clearly appears that the minors were deported to Syria. One child explains how they arrived in Syria, passing through Greece, then by boat to Turkey and finally by walk to Syria. He also explains that his father’s family was forcing him to train in the military Syrian camps.
He also told that his father's family forced him to train in the Syrian war camps. Sometimes they punished him when they found out that he contacted his mother.
In the meanwhile, the Scandinavian Tribunal issued an exclusive sole custody for the mother.
SEPTEMBER 2016: Hearing by the Juvenile Court, in which the new college of the Court tried to fix the mistakes done in July while rejecting the appeal, but it was too late.
END OF SEPTEMBER 2016: Request for withdrawal of passports, confiscated by the Police Headquarters, presented by the subtractor's lawyer. Request Rejected as the files have not been transmitted.
OCTOBER 2016: Further petition for the withdrawal of passports
OCTOBER 2016: Rejection of the petition, with request by the Prosecution Officer to the GIP for preventively confiscating the passports.
OCTOBER 2016: interview with the father (abductor)
END OF OCTOBER 2016: interview with the mother
In the meanwhile, the Gip rejects all the following requests:
- Restitution of passports: the father has no longer the right of requests concerning the children because they are exclusively entrusted to the mother. Consequently, the preventive confiscation of passports is not possible;
- Furthermore, prevention at this point is not useful because the crime has already reached its strongest terms; indeed, the issuing of passports, as the Juvenile Court has already expressed, could have allowed the return of the children, but this obviously cannot be officially ordered by any judge.
NOVEMBER 2016: Prosecutor Officer proposes a re-examination against the rejection order for the preventive confiscation
NOVEMBER 2016: Order of inadmissibility for the precautionary appeal
NOVEMBER 2016: The Police Headquarters received a warning from the Italian social services for the reception of the temporary decree of Juvenile Court to protect the minor child of the new partner.
In the following months different count hearings have been done, but they all failed since we don’t have track of the abductor and his children anymore.
APRIL 2017: Juvenile Tribunal rejects the appeal for defect of jurisdiction of the Tribunal – meaning that the Tribunal cannot intervene anymore, since Syria do not take part at the Aia Convention.

Type of Crime

International Abduction of minors, ART 574 Penal Code

Modus Operandi

- The support of the family in Italy, Germany, Turkey and Syria was of great significance;
- Usage of forged passport for abducting the children from their mother, to whom they were entrusted. Thanks to the falsified documents he could bring them to Syria;
- Social networks, particularly Facebook and YouTube, were the main tools used for getting and giving information on how to reach the Daesh territories. They were also used for recruiting as many individuals as possible as fighters or just supporters
- Investigative measures were mainly done through forensic data extraction from different devises, social media profiles and falsified documents (which have been confiscated). Unfortunately, on this point it is unclear which modus operandi has been used by the Italian authorities for identify the fake documents. In this case technological tools partly supported investigative measures.

People involved

5 abducted minors.
3 adults: two of them are victims and one is the suspected abductor.
All the minors were born in Italy, except for one of them, who was born in Syria. All the people involved are originally from Syria. The whole household moved to a small city in the northern part of Italy. After a couple of years, the first wife moved to a small city in the Scandinavian peninsula. From this small Scandinavian town, the abductor tried to abduct the minors twice. Later on, the two minors were brought back to Italy, were he successfully abducted them. He brought them to Syria.
In the meanwhile the abductor got a divorce from the first wife (who was living in Scandinavia) and got married to a new woman. They had a child.
It was thanks to the second wife that the DIGOS could start the investigations against the abductor, since she revealed them his connections to ISIS.

Criminal History

No past criminal history is documented.

Influential and/or vulnerable Groups

- The support of the family in Italy, Germany, Turkey and Syria was of great significance;
- Usage of forged passport for abducting the children from their mother, to whom they were entrusted. Thanks to the falsified documents he could bring them to Syria;
- Social networks, particularly Facebook and YouTube, were the main tools used for getting and giving information on how to reach the Daesh territories. They were also used for recruiting as many individuals as possible as fighters or just supporters
- Investigative measures were mainly done through forensic data extraction from different devises, social media profiles and falsified documents (which have been confiscated). Unfortunately, on this point it is unclear which modus operandi has been used by the Italian authorities for identify the fake documents. In this case technological tools partly supported investigative measures.

Case of international abduction associated with terrorism

Identification of the Source