Italy may be a target for new terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists, because of the stiff sentences its courts imposed recently on Arab terrorists, Interior Minister Antonio Gava warned this week.
The danger his been heightened by the downing Sunday of an Iranian civilian airliner by a U.S. Navy missile cruiser in the Persian Gulf, with a loss of 290 lives.
Speaking Monday at a gathering here of police chiefs from all over Italy, Gava said that the incident could provoke Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian Lebanese Shiite extremists, to carry out reprisals in Western countries.
“Within our borders are known to be about 60 members of Hezbollah,” the interior minister said.
But sentences imposed on the Arab terrorists who perpetrated the Christmans 1985 attack at Rome’s international airport may also trigger revenge attacks, he said.
Hameida Rashid, the only one of four Palestinian gunmen to survive the airport shootout, received a 30-year prison sentence. A life sentence was pronounced in absentia on the Palestinian terrorist leader Abu Nidal, who is believed to have masterminded the airport attack, in which 16 people were killed and scores injured.
Gava said there are now 22 Palestinian, Lebanese and other Islamic prisoners in Italian jails.
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