Traffickers stockpiling firearms

PEOPLE smugglers in Calais are buying firearms to defend their turf as they fight off rivals for the multi-million pound business of sending illegal immigrants to Britain.

Alarming evidence of the potential for gun violence on the French coast has emerged from an Italian investigation into an alleged plot to launch terrorist attacks on London.

Hakim Nasiri, 23, from Afghanistan, was arrested on terrorism charges and is suspected of conducting surveillance on potential targets in London’s Docklands, while Afghan Gulistan Ahmadzai, 29, and Pakistani Zulfiqar Amjad, 24, were arrested on suspicion of aid- ing illegal immigration. All three appeared in court in Bari, southern Italy, yesterday.

While a judge confirmed the arrests of Ahmadzai and Amjad on people trafficking charges, he ordered the release of Nasiri, saying the evidence presented so far was not serious enough to keep him in prison.

“The whole business has been blown out of proportion,” Nasiri’s lawyer, Adriano Pallesca, told the court. “From the evidence presented against Nasiri, there is nothing concrete that connects him to international terrorism.”

But Roberto Rossi, the chief prosecutor in the investigation, said he would appeal against the decision of the Bari court. A 213-page arrest warrant issued by the Italian authorities, seen by The Daily Telegraph, reveals that Amjad and Ahmadzai were allegedly involved in smuggling migrants from countries such as Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan into the UK from Calais.

They criss-crossed the continent, collecting migrants and refugees in Greece and Hungary and bringing them to France and Belgium.

The smugglers feared competition from rival traffickers and, in telephone conversations intercepted by Italian police, discussed how to acquire weapons to ward off the competition. The smugglers wanted to procure firearms because they faced a “critical situation” with rivals, Italian prosecutors said.