Police were carrying out at least 15 searches in Italy today stemming from yesterday's arrest in Rome of a London bombing suspect, the government said.
Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu told the lower house of parliament that suspected bomber Osman Hussain evaded police searches with the help of contacts among Italy's Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrant communities.
"From the investigations, it has been possible to identify a dense network of individuals belonging to the Eritrean and Ethiopian communities in Italy, believed to have helped him cover his tracks", Mr Pisanu said.
Mr Pisanu said Hussain was born in Ethiopia, not Somalia, as the government reported yesterday. Hussain left London's Waterloo Station for continental Europe on July 26, he added.
Explaining the searches, Mr Pisanu said Hussain had been in contact with East Africans in Milan and Brescia in northern Italy. He said the Ethiopian father of Mr Hussain's girlfriend lived in Brescia.
He was arrested yesterday at what police described as a relative's apartment in a middle-class neighbourhood outside Rome's historic centre.