An Italian driver of Senegalese origin who had retained in March 2019 fifty schoolchildren to protest against the plight of migrants in the Mediterranean, was condemned, this Wednesday, July 15, to 24 years of imprisonment, according to the media. The Assize Court of Milan (north) followed the indictment of the public prosecutor's office which accused him of " forcible confinement with a terrorist objective " and requested a sentence of 24 years' imprisonment.
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The man had diverted his vehicle to Milan airport with 51 college students on board. " I wanted to go on the airport runway (...) with the children I would have used as a shield, and from there to fly to Africa in a brilliant way ", he had explained during the one of his first interrogations.
Heroic behavior
He said he acted because of the many migrants who died in the Mediterranean. " I heard the voices of children at sea saying to me:" do something brilliant for us but without hurting the children, " " he told investigators, media reports said.
Ousseynou Sy was blocked by riflemen on the road before setting the bus on fire. All the children had managed to escape in extremis through rear windows broken by the soldiers alerted in secret by two children who were on the vehicle. These two young boys, Ramy, a 14-year-old Egyptian at the time, and Adam, a 13-year-old Moroccan, who had shown exceptional courage during this hostage-taking, were granted nationality Italian by government in June 2019.