(ANSA) - Milan, March 21 - The father of a 13-year-old Egyptian boy who phoned police aboard a school bus hijacked and later torched by a Senegalese bus driver angry at kids' migrant deaths on Thursday said he would like to see his son get Italian citizenship.
"My son did his duty, it would be nice if he could now get Italian citizenship," said Khalid Shehata, father of Ramy, who managed to hide his cellphone and make the first call to emergency services on board the terror bus near Milan Wednesday.
"We're Egyptians, I arrived in Italy in 2001, my son was born here in 2005 but we're still waiting for the official document.
"We would really like to stay in this country." Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said "we will evaluate" the request for Ramy's citizenship.
Fellow Deputy Premier, Labour and Industry Minister and 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Luigi Di Maio said he was in favour.
Salvini aslo said Thursday the government would do all it can to strip Italian citizenship from the Senegalese-Italian bus driver.
"We'll do everything possible to make sure this bloody guy has his Italian citizenship revoked," said Salvini on the stump for regional elections in Basilicata.
"Let him not speak for 60 million Italians," he said, referring to the man's call to stop migrant children's deaths in the Mediterranean.
Bus driver Oussenyou Sy has a definitive conviction for harassing a minor, sources said on Thursday. Sy, a 47-year-old from Senegal who has Italian citizenship, was handed a definitive one-year suspended prison term in 2018 in relation to harassment of a 17-year-old girl that took place in 2010.
The man was also convicted for drink driving in 2007, the sources said.