Italy has deported an Albanian woman who was convicted of recruiting women for Islamic State as part of a cell operating in southern Tuscany.
Arta Kacabuni was deported to Albania on Wednesday, October 17 after a Milan court found her guilty of belonging to a terrorist association and recruiting women and girls for ISIS, ANSA reported the interior ministry as saying.
Kacabuni, who also used the name Anila, was arrested along with nine other people in a series of raids in July 2015.
Her nephew Albo Kobuzi trained in Iraq, according to police. Arrested along with Kacabuni were the parents and sister of Kobuzi’s wife, Maria Giulia Sergio.
Kobuzi’s mother, Coku Donika, and his sister Serjola Kobuzi also traveled to Syria to join ISIS.
Sergio, then 29, and Kobuzi were convicted in absentia in 2016. Sergio’s parents and sister tried to join her in Syria before their arrests. Her mother died in 2015, and both her sister and father have been sentenced to prison terms.
Kacabuni was released from custody and immediately deported, the daily Corriere Fiorentino reported on Wednesday. The 44-year-old had lived in Italy since 2003.
Italy has deported 105 people this year for state security reasons.
According to a study by the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)’s Center on Radicalization and International Terrorism, at least 111 of 125 foreign fighters with links to Italy have traveled to Syria.