Two Moroccan students who attended a university in the central Italian city of Perugia were expelled from the country last month after it was discovered that they were conspiring to kill Pope Benedict. One of them allegedly said he wished to “earn a place in Paradise.”
According to Italian weekly newspaper Panorama, conversations intercepted by Italian authorities led to the arrest and deportation of the two suspects.
The order for expulsion reportedly included the transcript of a conversation in which one of the students, Mohammed Hlal, said that he wished “death to the head of the Vatican City State” and was "ready to assassinate him to earn a place in Paradise."
The 26-year-old Hlal was speaking over the phone with 22-year-old Ahmed Errahmouni when he made the statements which earned them the attention of the local police and a trip back to Morocco.
They were deemed a “threat to national security” in the document signed by the Italian Minister of the Interior and expelled on April 29, Panorama reports.
According to an investigation begun last October by the Italian anti-mafia police, the two were known to have a radical vision of Islam and had expressed a desire to obtain explosive materials. It was reported that no material used to construct explosives was found in their residence hall rooms.
But all religions are the same, right? I mean, those two Mormon kids walking down the street could be preparing to go whack some Baptist televangelist. And the two Hasids coming out of that bank―I'll be awfully surprised if another sundown passes without seeing them stabbing a Quaker.
Hlal studied international communications, while Errahmouni was a student of math and physics at the University of Perugia.
Wait... not poor and down-trodden? Not ignorant and uneducated? What?
oh my gosh. I studied Italian (more or less) at that university. Universita per Stranieri. It's where all the ferriners go to learn Italian. Don't think it harbored too many terrorists back in the day, though.
ReplyDeleteThis is why John Paul II was incorrect to note that deportation is an intrinsic evil (Splendor of the Truth section 80). It is not evil in all cases.
ReplyDeleteYes, I understand why, for example, it is immoral to torture as a preventative measure or punishment. However to forcibly move a criminal from one place to another--how is that intrinsically wrong? Wouldn't that make imprisonment an intrinsic evil for the same reason?
ReplyDeleteSee last paragraph of section 8 of Ludwig Ott's Introduction to the Fundamentals of the Catholic Faith online. The papal ordinary magisterium (most encyclicals) can be incorrect on morals as was Leo X when in 1520 he condemned Luther for being against "burning at the stake" of heretics in Exsurge Domine article 33. Now the whole Church agrees with Luther.
ReplyDelete