An unsavory second-generation culture-enricher in Italy joined Islamic Jihad, and later the Islamic State. He made the pilgrimage to Syria so that he could realize his dream of being a jihad fighter and torturer. After being captured by the Kurds, he was eventually returned to Italy, tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison. He is now serving a four-year term, which is a pretty stiff sentence by European standards.

Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from Il Tempo:

Italian foreign fighter arrested for torture: “He is a soldier for ISIS”.

November 12, 2022

Brescia police have executed a measure for preventative custody in prison issued by an investigating judge in Brescia for 28-year-old Samir Bougana, an Italian foreign fighter, born in Brescia, and of Moroccan origin. The man is accused of “kidnapping and personal injuries, aggravated by the use of torture and acting with cruelty as well as terrorism and racial hatred.” Bougana, born in Gavardo (Brescia), of a Moroccan family, is currently detained in the prison of Sassari (Sardinia), where he is serving a sentence of four years for terrorism and has been served with a new order of preventative custody. In 2010 he moved to Germany and thence to Syria in 2015 with the woman who then became his wife.

After joining Islamic Jihad, Bougana left for Syria where he became a soldier of ISIS. Captured by the Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Unit in 2019, he was taken to Kobane (Syria) where he was placed under arrest by Digos (Italian Security) of Brescia and by the Central Directorate of Prevention Police, at the conclusion of an operation conducted in close cooperation with Aise, the FBI, and Syrian authorities, and charged with association for the purpose of terrorism.

After a radical ideological adherence to Islamic Jihad, begun in Italy and continued in Germany, he left for Syria. In July 2020, the Tribunal of Brescia sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment, a sentence later confirmed under appeal. The investigations, however, led to identifying other episodes for which the 28-year-old was responsible. In fact, responsibility reportedly emerged for the foreign fighter, who allegedly inflicted torture upon at least two persons, among them, an adolescent who had refused to fight for ISIS, and who is currently a refugee in Germany. The testimony of one of the victims of the torture was taken in Dusseldorf by the prosecutor assigned to the investigations, officials of the Central Directorate of Preventative Police, and Digos of Brescia. The witness, in fact, also told of torture perpetrated with electric shocks against Kurdish detainees belonging to the Yazidi minority to force them to convert to Islam.