Italian authorities on Thursday deported a 52-year-old Tunisian suspected of supporting the Islamic State jihadist group, the interior ministry said in a statement.
The Tunisian was deported from Palermo airport on state security grounds after he threatened to kill a soup kitchen worker in revenge for the fatal shooting last month by police in Milan of the fugitive suspect in the deadly Berlin Christmas market attack that was claimed by IS.
After refusing the meal served to him on 28 January at the soup kitchen in the city Latina near Rome, describing it as "shit", the unnamed Tunisian allegedly threatened the volunteer, the statement said.
"I'll wait for you outside. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, because your brothers killed one of my brothers in Milan," he allegedly told the soup kitchen volunteer.
The Tunisian was arrested by police the following day on 29 December. He had a previous criminal record, no valid residency document and was of no fixed abode, the interior ministry said.
He is the fifth terrorism suspect to be expelled from Italy this year and the 137th since January 2015, the ministry stated.
A rookie police officer shot dead Anis Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian, when he allegedly opened fire on police during a routine security check in a Milan suburb on 23 December. He was accused of killing 12 people and injuring 56 when he rammed a heavily laden truck into crowds at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz market on 19 December.
