Italian police have arrested a 38-year-old man who was spreading ISIS propaganda online and allegedly inciting people to carry out violent attacks.
Nicola Ferrara is originally from Bari in Puglia but now lives in Milan where he was detained. He is believed to have been radicalised in 2015 and been in contact with other extremists on online.
Mr Ferrara shared images and videos on social media sites including Facebook and SoundCloud that praised violent acts carried out by ISIS.
According to comments he made that were intercepted by the authorities in March, he said the Covid-19 pandemic was “a positive thing” that had caused people to go “crazy”. He also said it meant that non-Muslims had been removed from their vices.
Among the images he spread online were pictures of the former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, deceased ISIS chief Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, and photographs of New York’s Twin Towers that were destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, women carrying machine guns and children using extremist language.