A 23-year-old Italo-Moroccan woman
who had been in jail in Marrakesh for offending Islam since June
has been freed, the foreign ministry said Monday.
Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio thanked Italian diplomacy and
European Affairs Undersecretary Enzo Amendola for their work on
the case of Ikram Nazih, jailed for three years for sharing a
Facebook post on the Koran at the end of June.
Amendola said the student was set to be released on the margins
of a hearing earlier Monday.
He said that Nzihi would soon be released from prison, also
thanks to an excellent institutional collaboration with the
local authorities.
"Our co-national is well, and I send her and her family my best
wishes," said Amendola.
He said he had been working on the case with Italian Ambassador
to Rabat Armando Barucco and the consulate in Morocco, in
concert with Foreign Minister Di Maio and the foreign ministry
in Rome.
He said he had started following the case personally earlier
this month, speaking with interested parties and going to see
Nzihi in prison.
Amendola added: "Solid relations between Italy and Morocco
continue, the fruit of a strategic partnership".
Nzihi was jailed for three years in Marrakesh for
offending Islam at the end of June.
The young woman was arrested at the airport in the Moroccan city
on June 20 after flying from Marseilles, where she is doing law
at university, to join her family who live in Morocco.
The student, who was born in Vimercate near Milan in 1998 and
who grew up in the province of Monza, was convicted over a 2019
Facebook post that called a Koran verse obliging Muslims to
sacrifice "the whiskey verse".
She was found guilty of publicly offending Islam.
Amendola was speaking on the sidelines of her appeals trial.
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