Italy to deport Libyan academic jailed for terrorism

Rome, Feb 9 (IANS/AKI) Italy is set to expel Libyan researcher Khadiga Shabbi after a court in Palermo sentenced her to a year and eight months in prison for inciting terrorism.

The public prosecutor's office in Palermo signed an order on Wednesday authorising Shabbi's deportation at the request of Italian anti-terrorism police, Adnkronos news agency reported.

Although the Palermo court handed 46-year-old Shabbi a suspended sentence last Friday, she remained in police custody as she had no valid residency permit. She planned to appeal her sentence, her lawyer was quoted as saying.

Prosecutors had asked for a jail term of four and a half years for Shabbi, who was allegedly in contact with numerous foreign jihadists and had spread propaganda for Al-Qaeda via Facebook and other social media.

She sent sums of money to Turkey and tried to bring a jihadist cousin to Italy from Libya who was killed in a gun battle in the chaos-wracked North African country, according to prosecutors.

Shabbi denied all charges. She was arrested in Palermo in December 2015 and had arrived in Italy three years ago to complete a doctorate in economics at the University of Palermo.

The academic is related to a member of a jihadist group involved in the 2012 attack on the US diplomatic compound in the Libyan city of Benghazi in which US ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died.

--IANS/AKI

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