Aldo Kobuzi

Aldo Kobuzi, also known as Said, was born in Lac Kruje, Albania, on July 17, 1991.  Before being involved in the Sergio case, Aldo was a mechanic but he had also previously worked as a farm labourer in the province of Grosseto, Italy.  In 2015, he was charged with art. 270 bis of the Italian Criminal Code for criminal association with the purpose of terrorism, having enlisted within ISIS after traveling to Syria with his wife Maria Giulia Sergio.
There is little information about Aldo’s radicalisation path, but sources  testify that at some point in his life he came into contact with some radical Albanian preachers and converted into radical Islam. Therefore, when he met Maria Giulia Sergio in September 2014 his radical beliefs had already been rooted into his mind. On September 8, 2014, Aldo arrived in Italy alongside his uncle Astrit Coku and was hosted by his other uncle Baki Coku in Scansano (GR). Aldo’s mom, Donika Coku, had been previously been contacted by a friend of hers, Lubjana Gjecaj, about Maria Giulia Sergio, an Italian converter living in Inzago (MI) who was willing to marry and travel to Syria to do hijra and Aldo had been chosen as the eligible husband.
Therefore, on September 16, Aldo alongside his mom, his uncle Baki and his wife Arta Kacabuni traveled to Treviglio and he married Maria Giulia on the next day. On September 21, the newlyweds and Donika Coku flew from Rome to Istanbul first and then took a domestic flight to Gaziantep, a city close to the Syrian border. Phone records reveal that they were in all probability helped by Ahmed Abu Alharith, a known ISIS handler, to cross the Syrian border. Once arrived in the town of Sed Forouk in Syria, they met with Aldo’s sister, Serjola Kobuzi, who had moved to the Islamic State earlier that year.
In various phone and chat conversations dating back to the end of 2014, Maria Giulia told her family about their life under the Islamic State, confessing that Aldo was excluded from fighting because his sister Serjola had just become a widow and was about to give birth so the man of the family needed to stay home. She also revealed that Aldo had been sent to a military training camp in Iraq to become a fighter and that the Islamic State was providing for her in the absence of her husband.
At the time of the criminal proceedings and during the trial in 2015, Aldo Kobuzi was a fugitive, probably still in Syria, although there has been no news about whether he is still alive. Nonetheless, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced for participation to a terrorist organisation to ten years, a conviction that was later confirmed by the Court of Cassation of Rome in 2019.