Videos and conversations recovered during the investigation reportedly showed the teenager voicing support for ISIS.
By Shula Rosen
Italian police arrested a 16-year-old boy from the province of Como on international terrorism charges after investigators linked him to online ISIS propaganda and found material including antisemitic and neo-Nazi content and instructions for making an improvised explosive device.
The teenager was taken into custody in Grosseto while vacationing with his family.
He faces charges of participating in an association for the purpose of international terrorism, as well as propaganda and incitement to commit crimes motivated by racial, ethnic and religious discrimination.
The investigation began after AISI, Italy’s Internal Intelligence and Security Agency, reported an online user who was distributing jihadist propaganda connected to ISIS through several accounts on a messaging platform.
Investigators subsequently traced the accounts to the teenager, who had not previously come to authorities’ attention for connections to extremist circles.
Officers searching the boy and his digital devices found a substantial collection of Islamic State material translated into several languages, along with propaganda videos and images depicting training sessions and executions.
Police also discovered supremacist, neo-Nazi and antisemitic content.
Videos and conversations recovered during the investigation allegedly showed the teenager voicing support for ISIS.
Police said he also claimed to have previously assisted in producing propaganda for the terrorist organization.
Among the material discovered was a Russian-language video providing instructions for constructing an improvised explosive device from readily available items.
The investigation was carried out by the anti-terrorism section of the General Investigations and Special Operations Division in Milan, known as DIGOS, with assistance from Como DIGOS and the Service for Combating Extremism and External Terrorism of the Central Directorate of the Prevention Police.
The Milan Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office coordinated the investigation.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini responded to the arrest by writing, “Another well-mannered and perfectly integrated ‘Italian’ boy of foreign origin. Ready to build bombs in the name of Islamist terrorism…”
Police did not publicly identify the teenager’s ethnicity.
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