Issue No. 426

 Ilaria Alpi: A toxic murder coverup 

Earlier this month, on 6 July 2022, a man named Hashi Omar Hassan was killed by an explosive device attached to his car in the capital Mogadishu. More than two decades earlier, Hashi had been sentenced to 26 years in an Italian prison for the killing of Italian reporter Ilaria Alpi and her Slovenian cameraman, Miran Hrovatin. In 2015, Hashi was acquitted on appeal, released from jail, and awarded three million euros as compensation for wrongful imprisonment. 

Hashi’s death is the latest act in a long series of mysterious events surrounding the journalists’ killings, all of which spin a story of intrigue: Italian Mafia, arms trafficking, dumping of toxic waste, operations of offshore companies, military malpractice, and corruption. What kind of information did Hashi possess that would warrant him being killed nearly 30 years after a crime, which he did not commit? What interests are still alive today that would feel sufficiently threatened by new revelations about Ilaria and Miran’s murders - which many consider to be a cold case - to warrant cold blooded murder?

 Ilaria, 32, and Miran, 45, were ambushed and shot inside their vehicle in a Mogadishu street on March 20, 1994. A week before their deaths, the two had traveled to the northeastern port town of Bosaaso to investigate the alleged diversion of Italian aid. Italian humanitarian and development assistance to Somalia had long been problematic: during the 1980s, Rome poured more than a billion dollars into into projects so marred with waste and corruption that the scandal help bring down PM Bettino Craxi’s government.

In 1994, Ilaria and Miran were investigating rumours that instead of boosting the local fishing economy, fishing vessels donated by the Italian government had been illegally transferred to a Somali private enterprise called Shifco and were instead being used to ferry toxic waste and illegal firearms, in violation of a UN arms embargo. Another controversial project financed by the Italian government in northeastern Somalia was the construction of the Garowe-Bosaaso road. Ilaria told a fellow journalist that: “roads were being built from nowhere to nowhere, made for digging and dumping toxic waste.” 

It is no secret that the arms embargo was not respected in Somalia. A UN Panel of Experts reported in 2003: “the violations are so numerous that any attempt to document and catalogue all of the activities would be pointless.” Shifco itself was implicated in arms trafficking several times. A criminal case in Latvia relates to a 1992 consignment of 301 AK-47 rifles, 30 RP sub-machine guns, and 160 RPG-2s, as well as several million rounds of ammunition, and 10,000 mortar bombs being loaded onto a Shifco vessel off the Somali coast. A declassified note from Italian military intelligence reveals that months before Ilaria and Miran’s murders, the director of Shifco was preparing to transport a shipment of weapons from Ukraine to Somalia on behalf of a Somali warlord, General Mohamed Farah Aidiid. Recently declassified documents from the CIA show murky links of business interests and weapons trading between General Aidiid, an Italian national operating in Somalia known as Giancarlo Marocchino, and the Italian army.

According to investigations by various Italian media sources, it seems that while the weapons were smuggled from Eastern Europe, the fishing vessels were loaded with toxic waste in Italy, and the entire cargo - guns and potentially radioactive waste – dispatched to Somalia. The agreement with their local counterparts would have been permission to secretly dump the waste in exchange for the embargoed arms.

Somalia suffered from illegal dumping of hazardous waste since the early 1990s. Without a functioning government to protect its territory, many considered the failed state a free for all. One particular dumping scheme, named Project Urano 2, which came to light before it could be realised, offers insights into the dynamics and actors at play. Urano 2 was signed in Nairobi in 1992 between the then Italian consul to Somalia and Giancarlo Marocchino. Urano 1 had been the code name for the Italian so-called ‘Ecomafia’s’ dumping of toxic waste in the Sahara, and Urano 2 would have expanded their operations to Somalia. Giancarlo claimed that he had obtained the cooperation of a local clan leader, and that several thousand barrels of toxic waste could legitimately be dumped north of Mogadishu, in El-Baraf, near Mahaday Weyne. Although there is no proof that the dumping took place, reports emerged  of illnesses, deaths, and deformations amongst the local population – some of which featured in Ilaria’s reporting. 

According to a former member of the Calabrian mafia, the ‘Ndragheta, Ilaria and Miran were killed because they had witnessed the arrival of toxic waste in Bosaaso. A coded message sent by the SIOS Marina, the Italian naval intelligence service, on the day that the journalists arrived in the town, spoke of “anomalous presences” in Bosaaso, and of a “possible intervention,” further compounding the mystery.

Ilaria’s research was obviously sensitive in many respects, and it is likely that she had unnerved more than one actor in this web of illegal activities. Until today, the question of who commissioned the hit on Ilaria remains unanswered. Despite having declassified 12 documents surrounding the time of her death, the CIA claims to have no records of the ambush of March 20, 1994 – a strange lacuna since the journalists were shot dead near the Amana Hotel, and a former US embassy employee with close ties to American government was one of the first to arrive on the scene. No crime scene investigations ever took place, although video footage shows Marocchino loading the bodies into his truck, saying “They were somewhere they shouldn't have been.” Ilaria’s family was told that it was best to not view her body and to bury her in a closed casket because it was ridden with bullets, but a subsequent exhumation later revealed only a single, clean shot.

Ilaria was well known in Italy, and her murder shook the country. Subsequent investigations seem to have generated more questions than answers, including the arrest and conviction of Hashi Omar Hassan. Hashi always claimed he was innocent and that he wasn’t even present in Mogadishu at the time of Ilaria’s murder: an argument substantiated 16 years later by the Perugia Court of Appeal. According to Hashi’s lawyer, his arrest and conviction had actually been concocted to stop further investigations into Ilaria’s killing. In addition to arms trafficking and waste dumping, Alpi had been investigating reports that Italian peacekeepers were involved in the torture of Somalis. A reporter in Mogadishu who knew Ilaria said she had uncovered the abuses and was pressing the Italian military to start an enquiry, threatening to expose them if no action was taken. Hashi was one of the men who claimed to have been tortured and was flown to Italy to testify. Upon arrival in Italy, he was instead arrested for the murder of Ilaria. In reality, Hashi appears to have been set up: there was no enquiry into gross misconduct by Italian troops and no one was ever held to account.

It's entirely possible that Hashi’s recent killing had nothing to do with the Ilaria Alpi scandal. But it is also conceivable that he was considered by some nefarious interests to be a man who knew too much and that his murder, like his prior conviction, was intended to ensure his silence. 

Organised crime, including arms trafficking, toxic waste dumping, and corruption of foreign assistance are all alive and well in Somalia today; Ilaria Alpi’s killers, their associates, or their successors are quite likely among them. Hashi’s acquittal and subsequent murder suggest that the case may not be as “cold” as some would have us believe. On the contrary, recent events should serve as justification for an independent, impartial to finally uncover the circumstances of her death, unmask the criminal networks involved, and deal a damaging blow to some of the entrenched interests in Somalia’s war economy. Justice has been delayed, but it must not be denied.

By The Somali Wire Team