Mohammed Anis Bel Hadj, 25, was arrested by the Ragusa mobile squad in Vittorio Emanuele Square. When he was spotted by the police, he tried to escape but they gave chase and caught him.
He was given the arrest warrant issued in 2002 by the Giudice per le Indagini Preliminari (judge for preliminary investigations) Vincenzo Saito following a request by prosecutor Lelia Di Domenico.A 48-year-old Tunisian man, Habib Tabbakh, was found dead on the Ragusa shore the day after a landing on 4 July 2001. In a second landing, on 10 July 2001, another four Tunisians were found dead on the same beach.
Another two persons wanted in connection with this case have already been captured. They are Egyptian Abdou Kafas Salah El Din, 39, who was stopped at Fiumicino Airport in Rome on 25 January 2003, and Carmelo “Charles” Butler, 45, of St Paul’s Bay, who was caught on 5 May 2004 as he landed at Heathrow Airport upon his arrival on an Air Malta flight.
There are still another nine persons, presumably still living in Malta, being sought by the Procura di Ragusa (the Ragusa courts) in connection with this case, while another wanted person has since died.
The extradition requests had been passed to the Procura Generale di Catania (the Catania courts) and then to the Italian Justice Ministry.
The Ragusa mobile squad led by Giuseppe Bellassai had been tracking Bel Hadj for some time. Italian sources told The Malta Independent that it was thanks to information obtained by the Italian authorities in Malta that the man was traced in the Ragusa area.
They added that for the past few weeks, there has been an Italian task force in Malta dealing with illegal immigration.
Some time before his arrest, Bel Hadj had suddenly left his wife and boy in Malta and entered Sicily illegally. He was spotted thanks to the traces left by his mobile phone calls.
Bel Hadj’s role in the organisation, which managed the trafficking of illegal immigrants from Malta to Sicily, particularly between 2000 and 2001, is considered as that of an intermediary.
The Italian police investigations established that Bel Hadj used to contact the illegal immigrants after they came to Malta legally by air.
He would then allocate them in hotels close to the sea, and show them the boat which would have eventually ferried them to Sicily. The voyage lasted an hour.
The total fee for the whole procedure ranged between 600 and 1,200 US dollars for each immigrant.
Before being caught, Bel Hadj spent his last few days in a house at Santa Croce Camerina together with two other Tunisians who did not know his past.
The house was searched, but the search did not yield anything useful to the investigations.
The police are now seeking Bel Hadj’s first refuge. He had probably found hospitality somewhere in the coastal area upon his arrival in Sicily. While on the Italian island, Bel Hadj worked as a seasonal worker in agriculture in order to earn a
living.
The police are also investigating whether Bel Hadj was still involved in the organisations that continue to ferry illegal immigrants from Malta to Sicily.