Nigerian trafficker accused of murdering migrants held in Italy

Rome, June 20 (IANS/AKI) Italian Police on Tuesday arrested a 25-year-old Nigerian accused of belonging to a gang that trafficked migrants from Libya to Italy and of their torture, rape and murder.

Police arrested John Ogais at the sprawling Cara 'Santa'Anna' shelter in the coastal town of Isola Capo Rizzuto in Calabria after he was identified by migrants who recently arrived on Italy's southern Lampedusa island.

Several migrants told police they were told at the camp where they were held in Libya that Ogais who called himself 'Rambo' had beaten two Nigeran migrants to death.

One of the migrants, a minor, was killed in front of his brother, who was forced to watch the murder while Ogais threatened him with a loaded pistol, according to witnesses.

"I know that my cousin and others tried to escape and that they were caught and subsequently died from the torture meted out to them," one of the migrants on Lampedusa was quoted as telling police.

Ogais and other traffickers tortured migrants in "countless" ways including with electric shocks and beatings on various parts of their bodies with rubber tubes, one of dozens of gang's alleged victims was cited as telling police.

The gang members also raped women migrants and imprisoned both sexes in squalid containers in the Libyan desert for many months, forcing them to pay thousands of euros to continue their journeys to Europe.

--IANS/AKI

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