Brescia, the promoters of the Zanotti and Sandrini kidnappings arrested: they induced them to leave to kidnap them

Brescia, at dawn today, in the province of Brescia, the State Police and Carabinieri executed a precautionary custody order in prison ordered by the Judge for Preliminary Investigations of Rome at the request of the Anti-Terrorism Group of the Capitoline Public Prosecutor's Office, in comparisons of three people. This is a provision issued as part of the investigations conducted by the Special Operational Group of the Carabinieri, the Central Operational Service of the State Police and the Brescia Flying Squad, in relation to the kidnappings committed against compatriots Sergio ZANOTTI and Alessandro SANDRINI , kidnapped in Turkey between April and October 2016, held prisoner in Syria until April/May 2019 by the terrorist organization Hay'at Tahrir a-Sham. During the operations, 87.800 euros were seized.

The restrictive measures concern two Albanian citizens residing in the province of Brescia, FRROKAJ Fredi, 43 years old resident in Flero and MITRAJ Olsi, 41 years old resident in Gussago and an Italian citizen, ZANINI Alberto, 54 years old from Mazzano. In the same operational context, searches were ordered both in the Brescia area and in Germany; here, the act concerns a compatriot domiciled there and was issued as part of a European Investigation Order addressed by the Rome Prosecutor's Office to its branch in Constance.

Today's arrests are the result of complex investigations directed by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Rome during a significant period of time between the kidnapping of Sergio ZANOTTI, dating back to mid-April 2016, and February 2020, at the conclusion of a final phase of intense investigations conducted following the release of Alessandro SANDRINI (in May 2019), when it was possible to operate without risking harm to the safety of our compatriots.

The investigations have revealed the operations, in the province of Brescia, of a group of subjects of various nationalities against whom there is a serious circumstantial framework regarding the hypothesis of kidnapping for the purpose of terrorism. What has been highlighted, also considering the numerous points of similarity between the two kidnappings taken from the comparative analysis of each of the two events, is that the members of this team planned the sending of ZANOTTI and SANDRINI to Turkey with the ultimate aim of creating the prerequisite why in that country, in an area not far from the border with Syria, another branch of the group proceeded with the kidnapping of the two, which was followed by an almost three-year imprisonment managed, from the very first stages, by elements belonging to the formation Hay'at Tahrir a-Sham.

The figure of FRROKAJ is the central one in the general economy of the investigation; it is the subject to whom the other people involved in the facts being prosecuted referred. He is present in operational terms in both the kidnappings of Sergio ZANOTTI and Alessandro SANDRINI and is the one who personally induced ZANOTTI to leave for Turkey by attracting him to that area under the pretext of acquiring a batch of Iraqi dinars out of circulation. Fredi FRROKAJ also manned the Orio al Serio airport on 3.10.2016, when SANDRINI, accompanied to the Bergamo airport by Alberto ZANINI and Olsi MITRAJ, arrived there to board the flight that would take him to Turkey.

Furthermore, the three, FRROKAJ, ZANINI and MITRAJ, were also located in the same airport area on Sunday 25.9.2016, the day on which the organization attempted to send away its second kidnapped person (SANDRINI, in fact, is the third, while ZANOTTI is the first), an entrepreneur in financial difficulty also from the province of Brescia who, at the last minute, at the airport, desisted from the dangerous decision to go to Turkey, ruining the plans of those who had plotted his departure very probably also prodromal to his abduction. SANDRINI, as was ascertained during the investigation, had been a fallback, recruited by ZANINNI and MITRAJ to replace the one who had renounced the departure, sent to Turkey in just over a week from that 25 September. Targeted investigations are underway aimed at identifying the entrepreneur from Rezzato in order to be able to execute him as soon as possible.