Kidnap victim’s return home divides Italy Far right seizes onto claims that government paid for Silvia Romano to be released.
Italian aid worker Silvia Romano’s release from Islamic terror group al-Shabaab has created controversy over her conversion to Islam and the Italian government allegedly paying her ransom | EPA-EFE/Matteo Corner
ROME — The return home of an Italian aid worker who was held hostage by a terror group in Somalia seemed to offer a moment of good cheer for a nation struggling to cope with the coronavirus crisis.
But claims that the government paid a ransom of millions of euros to secure the release of 24-year-old Silvia Romano have cast a shadow over any celebrations. Italy is widely suspected of paying for the release of kidnapped nationals although officially it denies doing so.
Al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group that claimed responsibility for kidnapping Romano, claims it will use the ransom money paid by the Italian government “to buy weapons for jihad.”
The controversy has been amplified by reports that Romano has converted to Islam. Stepping off a plane in Rome to meet her family and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Sunday, Romano was wearing a green hijab.
She has since been the victim of violent online hate speech, including death threats, forcing police to guard her family home.
According to Italian media, Romano told investigators that she “had always been treated well.”
Even her local priest in Milan, don Enrico Parazzoli, said he had received criticism when he rang the church bells in celebration, “for transforming the bell tower into a minaret.”
Romano was taken hostage in November 2018 in the town of Chakama in Kenya, while working for a tiny Italian NGO called Africa Milele.
Police believe she was then taken on foot and by motorbike to Somalia. Ali Dehere, a spokesman for al-Shabaab, told Italian newspaper La Repubblica, “We did everything to make her not suffer because she was a hostage not a prisoner of war.”
Like all hostages, she was “a precious commodity,” he said, adding that the ransom money would be used “in part to buy weapons which we always need to carry on with jihad, and to manage our territory, including paying police to maintain order and force people to respect the laws of the Quran.”
According to Italian media, Romano told investigators that she “had always been treated well. They told me that I would not be killed and that turned out to be true.”
In police debriefings, she claimed that her conversion to Islam was “a free choice” that took place about halfway through her imprisonment.
She said she asked for something to read and was given an English translation of the Quran. Her kidnappers taught her a little Arabic and explained their religion and culture, she said. “It was a slow process. I started reading out of curiosity then it became normality.”
Her family has suggested that she converted under the pressure of living as a hostage. Domenico Quirico, an Italian journalist who was kidnapped in Syria in 2013, agrees. He told Italian TV, “Nothing in the course of a kidnap, when you are violently deprived of your liberty, is fully voluntary.”
Opposition parties say that Romano’s conversion is a propaganda victory for terrorists and the ransom money could be used to fund attacks on more innocent people. Al-Shabaab has been behind numerous attacks on civilians in Kenya including the Westgate attack in Nairobi in 2013 in which 71 people died.
Massimo Giorgetti, a regional lawmaker for the far-right Brothers of Italy party, wrote on Facebook: “Am I happy about Silvia Romano’s release? Not at all. Now we will have one more Muslim and 4 million euros less.”
Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League and former deputy prime minister, wrote on Twitter: “The Islamic terrorists gained both money from a criminal act and they won the cultural battle in the name of Islam and conversion.”
Silvia Romano meets with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in Rome on May 10, 2020 | EPA-EFE/Fabio Frustaci
Others pointed out that ransoms make Italians a target for kidnappings. Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy, tweeted: “You cannot create the impression that it is good business to kidnap Italians.”
Source:https:politico.eu/