Despite being suspected of having links to international terrorist organisations like the Islamic State, a procedural issue has prevented Italian authorities from arresting five Tunisian migrants, even as the Islamic State makes fresh threats against Rome.

Authorities in Turin initially requested the arrest of the five Tunisian migrants in May of this year but were rejected and then appealed by authorities who were given arrest permission earlier this week. However, the migrants themselves can still appeal the court decision up to the supreme court which would see them free until a ruling is made La Repubblica reports.

The groups of five Tunisian migrants are said to have come to Italy on university visas but Piedmont Islamic extremism investigators say they formed a terrorist cell and had links to the Islamic State terror group.

Italian right-wing Senator Maurizio Gasparri expressed outrage saying, “it is really disconcerting as it is happening. I call on the government to intervene immediately. We can not allow suspected fundamentalists to be free to run around Italy and to kill us all.”

Senator Roberto Calderoli, a leading member of the populist Lega Nord led by Matteo Salvini, also joined in the condemnation of the situation.

“It is incredible, incomprehensible and unacceptable that a group of Tunisian terrorist suspects, on which a request for arrest by the Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office has been suspended for six months, cannot be arrested because of the usual slow procedure of appeals and many judges with discordant opinions,” Calderoli said.

Italian authorities have foiled a number of Islamic State terror plots including one directed toward the Italian capital of Rome which has become a symbolic target for the terror group.

EXCLUSIVE: Islamic State Supporters Vow to Conquer Rome Following Manchester Massacre https://t.co/NtU876KVzy — Aaron Klein (@AaronKleinShow) May 25, 2017

This week the terror organisation released a new piece of propaganda online showing a man behind the wheel of a car with St. Peter’s Cathedral in the background and the words “Christmas blood.”

The Islamic State has targeted both Christians and churches in the past. Last year jihadists killed and attempted to decapitate a priest in northern France.

Christmas celebrations have also been in the sights of Islamic terrorists since failed Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri used a truck to run through a packed Christmas market in Berlin last year killing a dozen people and injuring close to a hundred others.