Posted on 10/30/2001 2:22:17 AM PST by sarcasm
OTTAWA (CP) - Canadian diplomatic officials in Rome are scheduled to visit a man Italian police charged with terrorism after he was found comfortably camped out in a cargo container. Rizk Amid Farid, 43, is being held in the southern Italian town of Palmi on international terrorism charges.
Police found Rizk dressed in a suit and set up with a cellphone, cameras, a laptop computer and a variety of documents, inside a shipping container from Egypt. He is a Canadian citizen, and holds a legitimately issued passport.
Reynald Doiron, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, said two consular officials would visit Rizk on Tuesday to see if he needs money, reading material or help reaching relatives in Canada.
Rizk has family in Montreal.
His lawyer, Enrico Paratore, is connected with the local Amnesty International chapter in Palmi.
In a brief interview Monday, Paratore said Rizk might have requested his assistance because of that connection, but he underlined that Amnesty International has nothing to do with the case.
Rizk, dubbed "container boy" by Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay, abruptly changed lawyers last Friday.
Reports about the Italian investigation, which includes dozens of officers at the port of Gioia Tauro, say airport security passes, false credit cards, and airline tickets were found with Rizk.
He has maintained through both his lawyers that he opted for the unusual mode of transportation because he feared a powerful brother-in-law in Cairo, and felt he wouldn't be able to leave the country through the airport.
Investigators are trying to piece together Rizk's life by going through restaurant and hotel receipts, travel records and other documents.
"The cataloguing of the material found in the container has to be completed in order to proceed with the investigation," an investigator told the newspaper Corriere Canadese.
"A restaurant receipt can be a very important element to reconstruct the man's movements, or can mean nothing."
Rizk was held under an Italian law, approved last week, that makes international terrorism a crime and makes it easier for investigators to use such instruments as wiretaps against suspects. Previously, only terrorism against an Italian target was a crime in the country.
So considerate of them.
Just getting the poop?
And here I had guessed that he had gotten one of those incredibly low-priced fares through Priceline.com.
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