'ISIS terrorist' is seen offering a peace sign as he arrives in Europe aboard a migrant boat just one month before he would be accused of killing scores of tourists in Tunisian museum massacre
By Simon Tomlinson and Hannah Roberts for MailOnline 13:29 21 May 2015, updated 16:06 21 May 2015
- Abdel Majid Touil smirked for camera after being rescued in Mediterranean
- Expelled from Italy before travelling to Tunisia to 'plan museum massacre'
- After attacks, he managed to re-enter Italy where he was arrested this week
Flashing the peace sign for the camera, this is the suspected Islamic State militant arrested over the Tunisian museum massacre arriving in Italy just a month before the killings.
Abdel Majid
Weeks later, gunmen carried stormed the Bardo Museum in Tunis, killing 21 tourists including British mother-of-two Sally Adey.
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But he received an expulsion order demanding he leave Italy within 15 days.
From that moment, he disappeared before re-emerging in Tunisia where the authorities maintain he was personally involved in both the planning and the execution of the attacks.
He then disappeared again and managed to re-enter Italy despite the expulsion order.
He was arrested at the home he shares with his mother and brothers in Gaggiano, near Milan, on Tuesday night.
The accusations listed in the Tunisian arrest warrant include premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit attacks against the internal security of the state, belonging to a terrorist group and recruiting and training others to commit terrorist attacks, police said.
Police were able to identify him in part after his mother reported that her son's passport was missing immediately after the Bardo attack.
Bruno Megale of the anti-terrorism Digos police said: 'He did not appear to frequent mosques close to fundamentalism in Italy and was unknown to us apart from the deportation order before the intelligence came from the Tunisian authorities.'
Extradition procedures will now begin, it is understood, but Tunisia could face difficulties because the death penalty could be imposed for the crimes of which he is accused.
A neighbour in Gaggiano claimed Touil could not have taken part in the attacks in Tunis in March because he had been in Italy at the time.
The woman told ANSA news agency: 'He is a good kid. You are making a serious mistake.
'He has done nothing. At the time of the attack he was here. He is looking for work.'
His brother has also told investigators that Touil was in Italy at the times of the shooting.
News of his arrest follows warnings by Libyan authorities that ISIS militias in Libya are using migrant boats to smuggle jihadis into Europe.
A police spokesman
'The Tunisian authorities suspect him of having taken part in the Bardo attack.'
Milan's prefecture was expected to provide more details at a press conference later in the day.
The Bardo attack on March 18 in the capital Tunis killed 22 people in total.
Two Tunisian assailants who had shot tourists as they got off buses outside the museum were gunned down at the scene after taking hostages inside the museum.
Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi said a few days after the attack that a third gunman was on the run.
ISIS claimed
The terror group issued a statement and audio on jihadi websites applauding the dead gunmen as 'knights' for their 'blessed invasion of one of the dens of infidels and vice in Muslim Tunisia'.
The government said the two gunmen had trained in jihadi camps in Libya before the attack inside the heavily secured Tunisian parliament compound.
Among the dead were 17 cruise ship tourists, including British mother-of-two Sally Adey. They also included a Tunisian policeman.
Mrs Adey, 57, from Shropshire, had been on a cruise of the Mediterranean with her husband, Robert, and was on an excursion to the museum.
A coroner ruled at an inquest in March that
Police in Tunisia have arrested five people described as directly tied to the two gunmen.
Four others said to be supporters of the cell were also arrested in central Tunisia, not far from where a group claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda's North African branch has been active.
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