Arya News - A migrant on the run from police tried to evade recapture by hiding in a Christmas nativity scene in Italy, apparently pretending to be one of the Three Wise Men.
A migrant on the run from police tried to evade recapture by hiding in a Christmas nativity scene in Italy, apparently pretending to be one of the Three Wise Men.
The 38-year-old migrant from Ghana was on the run from a conviction for assault and resisting arrest.
He had been sentenced to nine months and 15 days in prison by a court in Bologna but then managed to evade the authorities and ended up in the small town of Galatone in the southern region of Puglia.
The fugitive’s ruse was rumbled when the mayor, who happened to be walking by, noticed a flicker of movement in the festive tableau, which has pride of place in the town in a square called Piazza Crocifisso (the Crucifix Piazza).
Photographs show him lurking at the back of the nativity scene with his arms held out, as if he is trying to mimic one of the life-size statues that made up the diorama.
He is standing amid bales of straw and amphorae, to the right of Joseph and Mary, who are beside the crib where a model of baby Jesus will be placed on Christmas Day.
The man was spotted when the mayor noticed a flicker of movement in the festive tableau
Mayor Flavio Filoni said: “While I was walking past the nativity scene, which was set up by our tourism office, I noticed a figure which I initially thought was part of the scene.
“But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the figure moving.
The migrant, who has not been named, was “in a state of difficulty”, said the mayor, who called the police.
They arrested him and remanded him in custody in a prison in the nearby city of Lecce, where he will serve out his sentence.
“Thanks to the swift intervention of our local police, the state police and the Carabinieri, it was possible to identify this person, who it turned out was a wanted fugitive,” the mayor wrote in a Facebook post.
“A big thank you to all the men and women who uphold our security with competence and dedication.”
The tradition of setting up nativity scenes is a cause dear to Giorgia Meloni , Italy’s prime minister.
In a social media video a few years ago, she railed against suggestions that nativity scenes and other Christian traditions at Christmas should be considered in any way offensive to people of other religions.
“Our identity and our traditions are under attack,” said Ms Meloni in the message.
She urged Italians to make sure they taught their children about the tradition of nativity figures, which are a prominent part of Italy’s Christmas traditions and in Italian are known as “presepi”.
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