The life of 39-year-old Mohamed Game was marred by frustration, unemployment, displacement from his homeland, two divorces and losing custody of his children.  Even his desperate attempt at what he believed was justice— a failed suicide bombing— left him blind, disabled and wasting away in an Italian prison with no contact to his family in Libya. 

His mother Haniya Bijo has not seen her son since 2008. “Frustration and despondency led my son to emigrate. He saw the chance to escape from an unfair reality,” she says about her son’s relocation to Italy in 2000. 

The life of 39-year-old Mohamed Game was marred by frustration, unemployment, displacement from his homeland, two divorces and losing custody of his children.  Even his desperate attempt at what he believed was justice— a failed suicide bombing— left him blind, disabled and wasting away in an Italian prison with no contact to his family in Libya. 

His mother Haniya Bijo has not seen her son since 2008. “Frustration and despondency led my son to emigrate. He saw the chance to escape from an unfair reality,” she says about her son’s relocation to Italy in 2000. 

“He was a father to two children whom he could not provide for in Libya. His first wife refused to travel with him so he divorced her and kept his sons in my custody.”

Ticking time bomb

Even in Italy, Game— a trained electrician—experienced one disappointment after the next.  

He married an Italian woman with two children. “He treated them as if they were his own. He had two other children with her, Omar and Islam. He convinced her and her children of embracing Islam and brought up the children according to the Islam teachings,” Bijo remembers.

Game, his wife and their four children returned to Libya in 2009 and stayed for nine months but he returned to Italy and kept Omar and Islam in their grandmother’s custody but their mother came back after eight months and took them from Tripoli Airport since they are registered in her passport.

Then Game suffered from a stroke and a heart attack and was clinically dead but was resuscitated. He left work and the Italian government ordered that his four children be taken from him on the pretext that he was unable to care for them, according to the Italian law,” according to his mother.

The Explosion

On October 12, 2009 while Italy was preparing to mark the anniversary of taking Cyrenaica from the Turks, Game walked into First Artillery Division Command in Milan, carrying a metal case with a bomb inside, only lightly injuring a corporal but causing Game to lose his arm and eyesight in the process.

According the Italian press, the police found a file on Game’s computer, containing the movements of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Gaddafi, during the latter’s visit to Italy in addition to the movements of other senior officials in the Italian government.

Game’s mother told the Italian Attorney General, Armando Sapatar, that her son was not a member of any terrorist group and that what he had done was “an individual attempt to kill Gaddafi and Berlusconi.”

Mentally unstable

“Before the incident, Mohamed called us and was worried about his children after the Italian authorities took away custody,” recalls Game’s younger brother Hisham.

“Six hours after the incident, a member of the former (Libyan) security apparatus called me and summoned me to answer questions after the Italian authorities informed them about it. The investigation lasted four months,” he remembers.

The lawyer assigned by the Italian government to defend Game told them that the Libyan government sent a warrant to the Italian attorney general, saying that Game was mentally unstable.

But the Italian lawyer, says Hisham, refused to subscribe to this view, especially since Game admitted to carrying out the bombing with full mental capabilities. “He argued that his defendant did it for the sake of his country and had he been mentally unstable, he would not have been able to make such a sophisticated bomb.”

Confession

Hisham stressed that Game admitted making and setting off the bomb and making a counterfeit identification as maintenance mechanic at Via Berchet Camp to gain easy access. After he passed through the gate, Game set off the bomb in the tool box he was carrying.

“Admitting all these details guaranteed Muhammad a fourteen-year imprisonment sentence,” says Hisham. “His Egyptian neighbor Muhammad Kamal was sentenced to four years in prison. However, the verdict on his Libyan neighbor Israphil and the others involved was adjourned,” Hisham added.

A prisoner of war?

Frustration and bad living conditions, his mother believes, led her son to do what he did, especially since he believed that the presidents of these two countries were to blame for what happened to him.

After the revolution, Bijo wrote to the head of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, explaining her condition and demanding help.

Bijo is looking after two grandchildren in the absence of their father with no salary. Abdul-Jalil she says, replied saying that her son was “a Libyan captive in Italy and the Libyan state considers him a prisoner of war.”

She stresses that Abdul-Jalil promised to solve her problem but his promises were not kept. “I appeal to all legal and human rights organizations and government officials to enable me to call her son in order to inquire about his health, especially since he is blind and has his arm amputated.”

Ahmad Shami, Head of the International Libyan Organization for Human Rights also refers to Game as a Libyan political prisoner abroad. “The Libyan state can claim him back and defend him like other prisoners, such as Iraq’s prisoners, those at Guantanamo and others,” Shami says.

Shami, who is also the secretary of the Political Prisoners Abroad Committee, stresses that “The committee will help the prisoner’s family if they provide a full and detailed file explaining his situation to be able to follow it up with the Italian authorities.”

Humanitarian grounds

Judge and legal consultant Suleiman Zawka believes that there are two solutions to Game’s problem. “The first, which is easier, says Zawka, “is to have an agreement to exchange prisoners between Libya and Italy and bring him back to serve the rest of his sentence in Libya. The second is through international contacts between the Libyan state and the Italian authorities or through a lawyer in Italy to explain his health situation and appeal to complete his sentence period in Libya or to release him on humanitarian grounds.”

Muneer Tashani, a legal activist in Libyan law and human rights, considered Game’s issue “a public opinion one and that the government should be pressured to claim him back even if he is imprisoned and sentenced. After all, he is a human being and has the right to be visited and to health care, a thing guaranteed by international conventions.”

“A written complaint should be filed by Game’s family, accompanied by all relevant documents to the National Council for Human Rights to help Game’s mother see him and make sure he is alright, and then NCHR follows up the file, intensifies media pressure and gets help from civil society organizations.”