ROME, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- Italian authorities have identified a six-member cell of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group which is believed to have kidnapped Italian aid worker Federico Motka in Syria in 2013, police and local media reported Wednesday.
Motka was abducted in March 2013 near the Atmeh refugee camp in Syria, where he worked for the French relief group ACTED. He was freed in May 2014, and was welcomed back to Italy at Rome's Ciampino Airport by then Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, La Repubblica newspaper reported at the time.
"The Special Operations Group (ROS) has issued arrest warrants against members of the Islamic State terrorist organization on suspicion of international terrorist association and the kidnapping of Federico Motka, abducted in Syria in 2013," Carabinieri military police tweeted Wednesday. The Carabinieri ROS division deals with organized crime and terrorism.
The warrants were issued against two UK nationals, one suspect who was born in Sudan and grew up in the UK, as well as two French and one Belgian nationals, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
Two of the suspects are already in prison in Belgium. One is the mastermind behind the May 2014 shooting attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in which four people died, ANSA said, citing a police report.
The remaining suspects are at large, and one of them is believed to have been killed in Syria, according to ANSA.
Italy's investigators succeeded in identifying Motke's captors, their links to other Jihadi cells in Europe, and various hostage detention sites in Syria "thanks to very extensive cooperation with the judiciary and law enforcement from the (other) European countries affected," ANSA reported.
