Marseilles killer's brother was foreign fighter in Syria (2)

(ANSA) - Rome, October 9 - Anis Hannachi, the brother of Marseilles killer Ahmed Hannachi, combatted with jihadi foreign fighters in Syria, according to information the French authorities passed on to their Italian counterparts, investigators said Monday. Tunisian Anis Hannachi was arrested in Ferrara on Saturday. He is suspected of complicity in the Marseilles attack, in which two young women were stabbed to death, and of radicalizing his brother. The Italian police executed a European arrest warrant for Anis Hannachi, who later Monday agreed to be transferred to France. The Marseilles victims were two cousins aged 20, Mauranne and Laura. Ahmed Hannachi reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he stabbed the women. The so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Anis Hannachi was sent back by Italy in 2014 when he landed at Favignana in 2014 on a migrant boat with other Tunisians, according to the results of investigations after his arrest. The French authorities had notified Italy that he was probably in Italy on October 3 and on October 4 it was ascertained that he was in Liguria. At the moment "there is no evidence" that Anis Hannachi wanted to commit terrorist actions in Italy or had plans to do so, investigators said at a press conference Monday. There is also nothing to suggest that the 25-year-old Tunisian had "solid support" in Ferrara for logistics.
    Anis Hannchis' court-appointed lawyer, Laura Lemmi, said "My client does not understand Italian and needed an interpreter. He is as tranquil as you can be in these cases".
    In Ferrara, he was the guest of a childhood friend who told police he had "no idea" the Hanachis had become radicalised.
    Italy's chief anti-terrorism prosecutor Franco Roberti told reporters: "Ahmed never showed any signs of radicalization in Italy. "The investigative hypothesis we're working on is that the younger brother radicalized the older one." Ahmed Hannachi, who has shot dead by soldiers, had reportedly lived in Italy for several years and was reportedly married to an Italian woman resident in Aprilia, near Rome - the same town where Berlin truck attacker Anis Amri also lived for a short time, police said. Amri killed 12 people at a Berlin Xmas market before going on the run and being shot dead at Milan central train station in December 2016.