PALERMO – Three people accused of kidnapping, trafficking and torturing refugees in Libya, have been arrested in Messina, Sicily, after being identified by their victims, local authorities said on Monday.

 The trio – Mohammed Condè, 27, Hameda Ahmed, 26, and Mahmoud Ashuia, 24 – allegedly managed a prison camp on behalf of a criminal organization in Zawyia, Libya, where refugees ready to flee to Italy were held captive until a ransom was paid.

 The Palermo Antimafia Directorate (DDA) ordered the arrests after refugees who arrived in Lampedusa on the Mediterranea migrant rescue ship on July 7 identified mugshots of their alleged persecutors, who had arrived in Italy a few months earlier.

 The refugees, who had been locked up in a former military base, said they had been subjected to atrocious physical or sexual violence and had witnessed the murder of dozens of migrants.

 "Systematic beatings with sticks, rifle jabs, rubber hoses, whipping and electric shocks," as well as "repeated serious threats" implemented "with the use of weapons or the brutal beating of other migrants as a demonstration," accompanied by the failure to “supply basic necessities, such as drinking water, and medical treatment for the illnesses contracted there, or serious injuries sustained in a state of imprisonment, physical suffering and psychological trauma and an inhumane and degrading treatment for dignity of the person" – these are just some of the tortures suffered by the victims in detention in Libya, as told to the judges of the Palermo DDA.

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