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Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
World
Asharq Al-Awsat

Italy Arrests Algerian Suspected of Aiding Paris Attackers

FILE - This is a Friday, Nov. 13, 2015 file photo of investigating police officers inspecting the lifeless body of a victim of a shooting attack outside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu, File)

Italian police said Monday they had arrested a 36-year-old Algerian on suspicion of belonging to ISIS and helping the perpetrators of the November 2015 Paris attacks.

According to anti-terrorism investigators in the southern city of Bari, the man gave direct support to the suicide bombers and gunmen, to whom he "guaranteed the availability of forged documents", a police statement said.

Some 130 people were killed and 350 wounded in a night of carnage on November 13, 2015, when suicide bombers and gunmen attacked sites, including the Bataclan concert hall, the Stade de France and the bar Le Carillon.

Investigators believe the arrested man was part of an ISIS cell operating in France and Belgium with his two brothers, according to Italian media.

La Repubblica daily named him as Athmane Touami, adding that he had reportedly already been in prison in Bari for carrying false documents and was due to be released in June.

The detention order, according to the paper, states that since 2010, Touami and his brothers also had contact with Amedy Coulibaly and Cherif Kouachi, two of the extremists in the Paris attacks of January 2015, who attacked a Jewish supermarket and the Charlie Hebdo newsroom, respectively.

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