Abderrahamane Kifane

Abderrahamane Kifane was born in Casablanca, Morocco, on March 7 1963, and was residing in Sant’Anastasia, Naples, at the time of the investigation.
His name was already known to the ROS of the Carabinieri in Rome in regards to the investigation “Moskea” started in 1994. In that instance, he was the main responsible for the procurement of false documents for the so-called “Lounici network”. He came under the scrutiny of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bologna when, in the early days of March 1998, he contacted Zoache Abdellatif multiple times. In these calls, Kifane asked for five forged documents from Zoache and tried to organise a meeting. While trying to hide the nature of the conversation by calling the documents “shirts”, the authorities quickly realised the true meaning of those words.
By associating with Zoache, Kifane broadly entered a network dedicated to, among other things, forgery, fencing, funding a paramilitary training camp in Afghanistan and supporting extremist operations. In this network were also present individuals directly linked to the Armed Islamic Group. On these grounds, the Bologna Court requested Kifane’s arrest in March 2000. He would later be arrested and sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in prison at the Court of Appeal of Bologna.
Eventually, he would also become a sanctioned individual for the US Office of Foreign Assets Control due to his links to global terrorism.