Italy arrests notorious Nigerian human trafficker over murder, rape, torture in Libya
A Nigerian human trafficker known as “Rambo” has been arrested in Italy on charges of torturing and killing migrants held captive in Libya, Italian police said Tuesday.
The suspect named John Ogais, 25, was traced to a reception centre in Calabria in southern Italy and clapped in cuffs on charges of belonging to a transnational smuggling ring, specialising in human trafficking, murder and rape.
Detectives in Agrigento in Sicily have pulled together witness testimony from migrants who accuse Ogais of torturing people held captive in a makeshift prison, with at least two men reportedly dying at his hands.
Many of those rescued from flimsy dinghies in the Mediterranean as they try to make the perilous trip to Europe bear torture scars and tell rescuers they had no choice but to flee for their lives from the crisis-hit African country.
“While I was inside that ghetto, where it was impossible to escape, I heard that a man who called himself Rambo had killed a migrant,” one of the witnesses said according to the police statement. “My cousin and others tried to escape but they were caught and tortured nearly to death.”
Another said: “Once I saw Rambo the Nigerian kill a migrant he had gagged and tortured for a long time.”
A third witness said he saw Rambo beat an underage boy and a man to death.
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