Italy’s Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, has said a Qatari missile seized in a raid on a neo-Nazi weapons-smuggling cell this week was linked to a plot to assassinate him involving Ukrainian paramilitaries.
The Italian police said that a plot against Salvini, the head of the country’s right-wing Lega Nord party, had been among several strands of inquiry they had pursued while they investigated individuals connect to paramilitary networks in eastern Ukraine. Investigations into the assassination conspiracy eventually hit a dead end.
But Salvini, who has become a figurehead of the Italian far-right with the potential to become the country’s next prime minister, has indicated the plot was far more serious and information he provided to authorities played an important role in uncovering the huge arsenal.
"I reported it. It was one of the many death threats that come to me every day,” Salvini said on Italian TV.
“The secret services talked about a Ukrainian group that tried to kill me. I'm glad it served to uncover the demented arsenal," he added while speaking on Italian channel RAI.
In the wake of the arrest of three men in possession of the arsenal of weapons, including the French-made Matra air-to-air missile that appeared in Italian police pictures with “State of Qatar” stamped on its packaging, further details have emerged.
Doha has offered no explanation as to how the missile made its way to Italy and came to be in the hands of a neo-Nazi cell. In a statement to Reuters, Qatar said the missile was one part of a larger weapons sale to a “friendly” nation 25 years ago. The nation was not identified.
"The authorities in Qatar have immediately started an investigation alongside the respective Italian authorities and the authorities of another friendly nation to which the Matra missile was sold 25 years ago," a foreign ministry spokesperson Lulwa Al KHater said in a statement.
She added: "Qatar is working very closely now with the pertinent parties including Italy to unveil the facts and it is very concerned as to how a missile sold 25 years ago ended up in the hands of a third non-state party."
