Touray Alagie

Touray Alagie (or Alhagie) was born in Gambia on December 10, 1996 and participated in the international terrorist organization called “Islamic State (IS)” or “Daesh”. He pledged allegiance to the organization and disseminated the recording of this allegiance to others, showing his willingness to commit acts of violence. He was arrested on the 18th of April 2018 by the central prevention police department, which found his oath of allegiance to the so-called Islamic State. Other videos of oaths on the Telegram channel were found on his phone.
Touray Alagie entered Italy through the port of Messina (Sicily) on the 22nd of March 2017 and was placed in a hotel in Pozzuoli, near Naples. Investigations revealed that the video of his oath was shot in the canteen of this hotel. Touray was found for verification at the Mosque on Via del Mare, also in Pozzuoli, and was subjected to a personal search. On his phone, they found a recording of him saying, “I swear allegiance to the caliph of all Muslims, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, to listen to him and obey him, and God is witness to what I say,” raising his right index finger, a symbol of “al-Tawhid”, which signifies the oneness of God. Additionally, an article from the official caliphate magazine “al-Nabah” was also found.
On Touray’s phone, a chat with a Gambian contact was analyzed, in which the suspect asked for prayers because he was “on a mission”, emphasizing his willingness and readiness to carry out a mission on behalf of the Islamic State. The oath recorded a few days earlier was preparatory for a mission to be accomplished.
Touray claims not to be a devout Muslim; shortly after he arrived at Benevento prison, he was subjected to a medical examination that confirmed a round mark on his forehead, the so-called “prayer callus”, produced by prolonged contact with the ground during prayer. Regarding the video, he stated that it was a joke for Batch Jobe, a friend with whom he spent his time in Gambia and that he was not even a devoted Muslim.
During the second interrogation, however, he changed the story of the events and said that Jobe had blackmailed him into sending the video in exchange for a Libyan contact to call in case of emergency. He claimed he had sworn allegiance only for money. He was told to “take a car and run over people.” He also said he left Gambia after a process of religious radicalization to reach the Libyan desert and participate in an Islamic State training camp called “mo’askar” and admitted, after lying several times, that he had been recruited together with other Gambian citizens by the terrorist organization. He had already made the oath at the end of the training with 70 other people; among them there was his compatriot Sillah Ousman, who was also arrested for terrorism in Italy.
Touray Alagie was held in Benevento prison on charges of the danger of committing a terrorist act in the Naples area.