Police nab Gambian migrant accused of Islamic State sympathy

ROME – Police say they have arrested a Gambian asylum seeker who arrived on a migrant boat last year from Libya and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.

Police chief Franco Gabrielli said 21-year-old Alagie Touray wasn’t caught plotting a specific attack. But he said Italy’s intelligence agencies suspected it was “highly probable” that he might, given the pledge he purportedly made in a video and sent by the Telegram app. He had received instructions to drive a car into a crowd, the ANSA news agency reported.

Touray was arrested Friday near Naples, where he has lived in a migrant welcome centre since arriving in Italy in March 2017 with hundreds of other migrants, ANSA said.

Naples chief prosecutor Giovanni Melillo said Touray was accused of participation in a terrorist association.