MILAN — Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni said Thursday that there are no indications the Tunisian fugitive from the Berlin Christmas market attack, who was shot dead near Milan, had any significant contacts in Italy.

Italian investigators have been trying to determine whether Anis Amri tapped a jihadi network in Italy, his European port of entry when he left Tunisia in early 2011 and the end of his nearly four-day flight following the Berlin truck attack that left 12 dead.

“No particular networks have emerged in Italy,” Gentiloni said in Rome ahead of a security meeting in Milan headed by his interior minister.

But the prime minister said there still is a need to enhance anti-terror measures, including making it easier to deport immigrants living in the country illegally.

Existing measures already permit Italy to expel foreign nationals with suspected terror ties, with 66 carried out so far this year and 152 since the beginning of 2015.

They include a Tunisian man living in the northern province of Brescia who was expelled Thursday. The Interior Ministry alleged he received instructions last month to carry out an attack in Italy “in retaliation for operations by Italy in Libya.”

Interior Minister Marco Minniti said the deported man apparently had no connection with fellow Tunisian Amri and there were no indications any attack was imminent.

Authorities in Rome, meanwhile, seized cellphones during a search of two apartments where Amri stayed in 2015, the news agency ANSA reported.

One is home to a Tunisian currently jailed on a drug dealing conviction.

Amri died of a single gunshot wound last Friday.

2 arrested after Delta flight to LA is disrupted, turns around

MINNEAPOLIS — A man and woman caused a disruption on a Delta Air Lines flight to Los Angeles, prompting the pilot to return the plane to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, airport officials said Thursday.

The flight took off at 6:20 p.m. Wednesday but returned at 7:35 p.m., airport spokesman Patrick Hogan said. The flight crew reported the pair became disruptive, he said. Partial police reports released Thursday didn't give details of the nature of the disruption. Airport police arrested the pair and they were questioned by police and the FBI, Hogan said. The police reports show Blake Adam Fleisig, 35, of Los Angeles, was ticketed on charges of disorderly conduct involving brawling or fighting. Anna Christine Koosmann, 36, of Edina, Minn., was ticketed on charges of disorderly conduct and obstructing police.

South Korea investigators look into alleged artist blacklist

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean investigators on Thursday summoned the country's ambassador to France as they widened their inquiry into a corruption scandal involving impeached President Park Geun-hye to include allegations her administration blacklisted thousands of artists for their political beliefs.

The special prosecution team was planning to question envoy Mo Chul-min over a supposed blacklist of 9,000 artists deemed unfriendly to Park's administration and allegedly denied government support. Mo served as Park's senior secretary for education and culture in 2013 and 2014.

South Korea's parliament impeached Park Dec. 9, weeks after prosecutors accused her of colluding with a longtime confidante to extort money and favors from companies.

Japan defense minister visits Tokyo shrine, drawing rebukes

TOKYO — Japan's Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, just back from Pearl Harbor, on Thursday visited a Tokyo shrine that honors Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals.

The visit, and one by another Cabinet minister the day before, drew rebukes from neighboring South Korea and China.

Inada accompanied Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during his visit this week to Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, where he offered condolences to those who died in the Japanese attack there in 1941.

Japan's Asian neighbors harbor bitter memories of the country's atrocities before and during World War II, when it colonized or invaded much of the region. So visits by top Japanese leaders to the shrine often draw complaints from countries such as China and South Korea.

Argentina court reopens probe of ex-president

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — An Argentine court on Thursday ordered a renewed investigation into a prosecutor's accusation that former President Cristina Fernandez covered up the alleged involvement of Iranians in a 1994 attack against a Jewish community center.

The bombing of the center in Buenos Aires killed 85 people and wounded hundreds of others. Iran has denied any connection with the attack and declined to turn over the suspects in the case.

The country's top criminal tribunal accepted a request by a coalition of Argentine Jewish associations to re-examine the charge Alberto Nisman made on Jan. 14, 2015, against Fernandez, her Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and other officials in her government. The decision was reported by the official Center of Judicial Information.

3 Nigerian inmates said

to have been secretly slain

ABRAKA, Nigeria — Three criminals on death row for about two decades have been secretly executed in the first hangings in Nigeria since 2013, human rights lawyers and a fellow inmate said Thursday.

The executions breach a seven-year moratorium on the death penalty in this West African country. The hangings went ahead despite outstanding appeals, making them “unlawful killings,” Chino Obiagwu of the Legal Defense and Assistance Project said.

Debate about the death penalty has revived recently in Nigeria, with some calling for people convicted of gross corruption to get a death sentence.

Obiagwu said the three inmates were hanged in Benin City Prison in southern Edo state on Dec. 23. All had been convicted of armed robbery.

Envoy missing: Rio de Janeiro police said Thursday they are investigating the disappearance of Greece's ambassador to Brazil. Kyriakos Amiridis was last seen Monday night, the police said in a statement.

Neither Greece's embassy in Brasilia nor the consulate in Rio replied to requests for comment.

Terror tax: French citizens will contribute an extra $1.67 on their property insurance policies to help finance a fund for victims of the extremist attacks that have recently hit the country. The measure comes into force Sunday. More than 200 people have died in France in attacks over the last 20 months.