Seventeen arrested in anti-terror op
Five of those arrested were in an “advanced process of radicalisation” and planning to launch an attack
The terror suspects arrested by the Catalan police yesterday were very radicalised and aiming to launch a terrorist attack, but did not have the capacity to do so and there was therefore not yet any risk to the public. That was the message issued by Catalan Interior Minister Miquel Buch yesterday regarding five of the seventeen men arrested in Barcelona and Igualada as part of an anti-Jihadist operation. They are being charged with the crimes of terrorism against property and public health, criminal organisation and falsifying documents.
An investigation that began in May 2017 with a citizen reporting Jihadist activity to the police culminated in an operation carried out at six a.m. yesterday by means of six police raids. The police say they have dismantled a cell of five Barcelona residents aged between 33 and 44 who were in an “advanced state of radicalisation with the conviction and intent to launch an attack”.
The group followed the principles of the Jihadist movement and had an “important” number of publications with the postulates of the Islamic State. Surveillance by the General Ministry of Information verified that those under investigation formed part of a wider criminal organisation, which had committed at least 369 thefts and robberies in the centre of the Catalan capital as a means of subsistence and financing their activities. Therefore, in addition to those arrested for terrorism, 12 more people have been arrested for belonging to a criminal organisation and crimes against property; one for public health and one for falsifying documents.
Of the five that had been radicalised, three are from Algeria, one from Libya and one from Iraq. The raids took place in Clot, La Ribera and Nou Barris.