An ISIS plan to hit Pope Francis during his visit to Trieste on 7 July 2024. This is what emerges from an exclusive investigation published by the newspaper The smallwhich reconstructs the network of suspicions and investigations culminating in the arrest of a Turkish militant in the Netherlands, then extradited to Italy.
The Pope, that day, had reached the Friulian capital to participate in the closure of the 50th social week of Catholics in Italy. A few hours before his arrival, on July 6, a 9 -caliber 9 -caliber automatic gun in an abandoned trolley was found at the bar of the railway station. The weapon was complete with a charger and 14 cartridges ready for use. A disturbing detail, which from the beginning had pushed the authorities not to exclude the terrorist track.
The investigations
The discovery of the trolley had triggered tight investigations by the police and intelligence. From the relations, an explicit reference would even emerge to a “possible attack project against the Supreme Pontiff”. In parallel, the investigators followed an international track that brought to Holland, where Interpol stopped Hasan Uzun, 46 years old, identified as the man who would have physically brought the weapon to the city on the eve of the papal visit.
Extremely and first imprisoned in Milan, Uzun is located today in the prison of Trieste in an insulation cell. According to penitentiary sources “he appeared quiet”, but he cannot easily communicate: he knows little English and needs an interpreter in Turkish.
The Isis Khorasan track
According to the investigation, the plan would be attributable to a Turkish organization linked to ISIS Khorasan, the jihadist formation that emerged in recent years as one of the most violent and active on the European front. The goal, the investigators claim, would have been hitting Pope Francis in a highly symbolic context and followed worldwide.
It is not yet clear how Uzun has been identified: whether through the station surveillance cameras or thanks to intelligence sources. Certainly, the investigators explain, the gun would not have been abandoned by chance.
Defense
«I took over on Monday to two colleagues who preceded me – explains the lawyer Lucrezia Chermaz, who assists Uzun – and I asked for a copy of the documents. For now I have not received anything. I met my client twice, we understood ourselves with difficulty in English and in the next few days there will be a Turkish interpreter. Only then can I have a clearer picture of the story ».
The investigations remain covered by the maximum reserve, but the picture that emerges confirms the fears about the terrorist threat against the Pontiff. The news of the discovery of the weapon, widespread by Tg1 and resumed all over the world, seemed to have fallen into silence. Today, however, he finds a concrete implication in an investigation that opens disturbing scenarios about the Pope’s safety and on the jihadist risk in Europe.
The Trieste Police Headquarters denies
“At the outcome of the investigations conducted in collaboration with the homologues of foreign police offices and also through international rogatory”, says the press release issued in the afternoon by the Trieste police headquarters, “no evidence emerged in order of hostile or murderous planning towards the Holy Father. For the other hand, the manager would seem to have been included in criminals unrelated to the terrorism of any matrix”.
