Italian police in Ferrara have arrested the younger brother of Tunisian national Ahmed Hannachi, a suspected jihadist who stabbed two women to death in Marseille, southern France last week before he was shot dead.
Anis Hannachi, 25 "probably" radicalised his brother, Italy's chief anti-terrorism prosecutor Franco Roberti told journalists on Monday.
He was held after what Italian police described as a “very complex” investigation.
Hannachi was detained in Ferrara in the Emilia-Romagna region over the weekend on an international arrest warrant issued at the request of French authorities.
He faces charges of membership of a terrorist group and complicity in the attack carried out by his 29-year-old brother on 1 October.
Hannachi had no identity documents on him when he was arrested and told police he was Algerian, according to the Italian interior ministry's anti-terrorism directorate.
Tunisian authorities have identified Hannachi as a former foreign fighter while Italian officials said he was deported in 2014 October as an illegal immigrant. On that occasion, he claimed he was Libyan, the officials said.
Hannachi has so far refused to speak to Italian investigators but is believed to have arrived in Italy at the end of September, according to French investigators.
Prosecutors alleged Ahmed Hannachi shouted “Allahu Akbar” twice as he killed the two university students outside Marseille's main train station, slashing one in the throat and stabbing her cousin in the stomach before he was shot dead by a French soldier.
The Islamic State jihadist group claimed responsibility for the Marseille attack in a statement published by its Amaq agency but did not name the assailant.
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