A meeting in Rome in July last year between Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Noordin Haji, Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) George Kinoti and top criminal justice officials from Italy laid the ground for the rescue of Silvia Romano, who returned home on Sunday after 18 months in the hands of Al-Shabaab militants.
Ms Romano, an Italian aid worker who was kidnapped from a village in Kilifi, landed home in Milan, Italy, ending the search that had almost written her off as dead.
Since her kidnap in November 2018, there had been no word about her whereabouts, no ransom demand or anything to indicate who had kidnapped her or what their intentions were.
She had, like other foreigners kidnapped from near the border with Somalia, become a distant memory. Until Saturday evening when Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte suddenly announced that she had been rescued.
“Silvia Romano has been released. I thank the women and men of the external intelligence services. Silvia, we are waiting for you in Italy,” he wrote.
“I’m very happy, dazed; I wasn’t expecting it,” Ms Romano’s mother, Francesca Fumagalli, was quoted by Italian media.
SPECIAL PROBE UNIT
Although the main agenda for the visit by Mr Haji and Mr Kinoti in 2019 was given as investigations into the Kimwarer and Arror dams scandal, insiders from the two offices have told the Nation that a summit on the kidnapping was also held.
Present were Italian investigators and special operations officers. Also present were the Attorney-General of Rome, Giovanni Salvi, and the substitute Chief of Investigations, Sergio Colaiocco.
In the meeting, it was agreed that an anti-terrorism special police team from Rome was to come to Kenya to assist in the investigations, which would remain in the hands of the DCI.
It is this team that found out that Ms Romano had been taken to Somalia and efforts were immediately started to contact her kidnappers.
The Italian government has not specified how Ms Romano was rescued. However, a number of media houses from Rome say that an unknown amount of ransom was paid.
According to News 1, negotiations for Ms Romano’s release began in January after a video surfaced where she said she was fine.
“Since then, another three months have passed in which there has been grueling negotiation and authorising for payment of ransom,” reported the media house.
“The exchange finally took place on May 8 in an area 30 kilometres from Mogadishu. The young woman arrived in the traditional clothes of Somali women and appeared to be in good health,” it said.
CONVERSION TO ISLAM
Like in previous similar rescues, it is unlikely that Rome will say how Ms Romano was rescued.
In 2004, two Italian women were kidnapped in Syria and Iraq under similar circumstances. They were eventually freed but the Italian government did not disclose how it happened.
It is said that Ms Romano had converted to Islam by the time she was rescued.
“I just saw her; she seems to be well, both physically and psychologically; she is a very strong girl; she is a smart girl; it seems to me that she has resisted very well. This is the impression I had,” said Italian Ambassador to Somalia, Alberto Vecchi.
Ms Romano, a trained medical practitioner working with non-governmental organisation African Milele Onlus, had been staying in a house at Chakama in Kilifi County.
On November 20, 2018 gunmen attacked the village, shooting at anyone in sight before making away with her.
STATE BLUNDERS
Three suspects – Ibrahim Omar, Abdulla Wario, and Moses Liwali – were arrested; their cases are still in court.
Other key suspects, who have a Sh1 million bounty each on their heads, Mr Yusuf Kuno Adan and Mr Said Adan Abdi, are still on the run. It is now known that Ms Romano was, immediately after the kidnapping, sold to the militia.
A combination of mistakes and delays by the Kenyan government in the hours after her kidnapping made it possible for the kidnappers to make it to Garissa before crossing to Somalia.
First, police from Lango Baya Administration Police post arrived at Chakama two hours after the incident. A military chopper was deployed to aid in the search and rescue effort the next day at noon.
But in the weeks that followed, the Kenyan government re-assured the public that Ms Romano was still in the country and that it was trying everything to rescue her. Then the trail went cold.