"The ship's hijackers have been captured. Everything ended well." The Minister of Defense, Guido Crosetto, writes on Twitter, adding: "my congratulations to the guys of the San Marco Battalion, to the policemen and to the financiers, who have concluded a splendid operation in collaboration. Each for his part. Well done!"
The Mobile Squad of Naples and the Gico of the Guardia di Finanza - as part of the investigations coordinated by the Neapolitan Prosecutor's Office on the alleged hijacking attempt that took place yesterday on a Turkish ship Galata Seaway (which left from the port of Topcular and headed to Sete, France) - listened in the night, at the Police Headquarters, to the captain of the ship and the 15 illegal immigrants found on board by the police. The captain told investigators that he saw two illegal immigrants armed with a knife wandering around the ship's engine area where they were unable to enter. At this point the two illegal immigrants were reunited with the others. For this reason he has raised the alarm: at the moment, according to what we learn from qualified sources, it is not clear the use that illegal immigrants wanted to make knives. It is therefore unclear whether or not there was an attempted hijacking. At the moment no measures have been taken and are not investigated. Crew and immigrants were interviewed as people informed of the facts.
Three immigrants will be reported on the loose for possession of weapons as part of the investigations of the Gico of the Economic-Financial Police Unit and the Roan of the Guardia di Finanza of Naples and the Mobile Squad as part of the investigations - coordinated by the Neapolitan Prosecutor's Office - on the alleged hijacking of a ship flying the Turkish flag bound for France. It is not yet clear whether the crime of aiding illegal immigration will also be charged against them but, according to qualified sources, there will be no complaint for the hijacking.
The immigrants on board the hijacked Turkish ship have all been traced: they are 15 people, 13 men and two women. Answering questions from financiers and agents of the Naples Mobile Squad, who are using an interpreter, they reported that they were Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi. Investigators are now working to figure out which of them took part in the hijacking. The investigations are coordinated by the prosecutor of Naples (prosecutor Enrica Parascandolo) and are 360 degrees: it is a matter of identifying the people involved, establishing what their real intentions were, the existence of any links with terrorist fringes. It will then be necessary to reconstruct in detail the incident, starting from the place where the hijacking took place because this will determine the territorial competence of the investigators.
On board the Turkish ship whose hijacking was attempted, investigators found two knives and a box cutter: it could be, it is the hypothesis under consideration, the weapons used to threaten the crew. The Gico of the Guardia di Finanza and the Mobile Squad of Naples managed to discover where the immigrants had hidden thanks to the images recorded by the video surveillance systems of the ship.
The attempted kidnapping
The attempted kidnapping by armed assailants in the bridge of a Turkish cargo ship and the SOS launched by Turkish sailors. And shortly after, the men of the San Marco Marine Brigade descended from helicopters to neutralize the group of irregular migrants who had tried to hijack the ship. The special operation in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the Neapolitan coast, managed to prevent the attack of about fifteen migrants, probably coming from the Middle Eastern route, who became pirates in a few moments.
An operation that, although the cargo was then escorted at anchor in the port of Naples where a police force device was deployed, continued with the reclamation of the ship. The merchant ship was carrying trucks and had left the port of Topcular in Turkey on June 7 directed to France at the port of Seté where it was supposed to land on June 10 but at the height of the island of Ischia the journey was interrupted: after being discovered the irregular migrants, perhaps hidden in one of the trucks on board, they tried to take possession of the merchant Galata Seaways putting the twenty-two crew members in check. The sailors managed to launch the SOS to the Coast Guard French who alerted the Italian one, which always remained in contact with the command of the ship: then the blitz of the Navy, stationed in Brindisi. Two helicopters intervened: the men of the San Marco Brigade, the Infantry of the Sea, lowered themselves on the cargo while those of the Comsubin remained on the helicopter to monitor the situation.
Migrants try to hijack a Turkish ship off the coast of Naples, stranded
Once the intervention was triggered, with the Minister of Defense Guido Crosetto constantly informed, the Italian military immediately blocked a part of the group of assailants who still had weapons in hand: four or five migrants, with knives, had tried to take possession of the dashboard, barricading themselves inside and also attempting the kidnapping of Turkish sailors. The other attackers, on the other hand, disappeared hiding among the vehicles.
To provide the update of the operations was the same Crosetto, who was participating in the Masseria Forum in Manduria: "We hope that it ends as soon as possible without consequences for anyone", he said. With the ship safe and the violent neutralized, the cargo was taken to the port of Naples, to continue the reclamation of the boat. To guarantee the safety of the operation, escorting the boat, there was the Gregoretti ship of the harbor master's office, a helicopter and a Coast Guard plane as well as a patrol boat of the Guardia d Finanza.
Once at anchor in Naples, where the cargo will remain, on the Galata Seaways the men of the Mobile Squad of Naples, the financiers of Gico and Roan the Port Authority boarded to continue the search for other assailants and to try to reconstruct what happened. On the attempted hijacking of the Turkish cargo, the Naples prosecutor's office has ordered the investigations coordinated by the prosecutor Enrica Parascandalo: the preliminary activity will also aim to ascertain the exact sea area where the attempted seizure and hijacking took place also to determine the territorial competence of the investigators.