The eighth suspect in the attempted assassination of Alejo Vidal-Quadras, still on the run, must finish solving the mystery of the Iranian plot. Since January, the Spanish police have been looking for a citizen with dual nationality, Moroccan and Spanish, who allegedly hired the author of the shooting, arrested last June in the Netherlands. The fugitive is believed to be at the top of the organization of the attack, in contact with those who ordered it.
The reconstruction of the preparation of the attack carried out by the General Information Commission has made it possible to conclude that a third man would have been watching Vidal-Quadras before the Franco-Tunisian Ahmez Ayari shot Vidal-Quadras a few meters from his house, on November 9, 2023. This is the Spanish-Moroccan fugitive who, 24 hours before Ayari pulled the trigger, already with everything ready for the crime, left Madrid.
The relevance of this eighth suspect, however, lies in his role in the plot. Researchers believe that this is the last step they must take before reaching Iran. A former resident of the Costa del Sol, with numerous criminal records, the fugitive is said to have hired Ahyari to pull the trigger. According to El Confidencial, this is Sami Bekal Bounouaré, alias “Pacho”.
The eighth piece of the puzzle would also have been in charge of obtaining a support infrastructure for Ayari, who in the attack and escape was accompanied by a native of Granada, a converted Shiite, who accompanied him in the escape from the place and who would have participated in the prior follow-ups to the Vidal-Quadras. Along with the fugitive and the shooter, the Spanish-Moroccan is the third man who surrounds the politician. When everything was ready, he left Madrid and Spain. The Spanish police are looking for “Pacho” in several countries while the judge maintains the secrecy of the procedure.
The reverse path that police investigators have taken since last November has revealed a wider web than what appeared after the first investigations. There are already seven detainees in Spain, France and the Netherlands. All these arrests are pointing in one direction, the same one that Vidal-Quadras wrote in capital letters on the screen of his mobile phone and showed to a police officer in the ambulance that took him to the hospital: “the Iranian regime.”
The arrest of the man who shot Vidal-Quadras confirmed who was behind the attack. Ayari was arrested while carrying out another attack in Haarlem, a suburb of Amsterdam. In this case, their target was Siamak Tahmasbi, an Iranian dissident with a high profile on social media.
Tahmasbi, whose house had been attacked a month earlier, reacted quickly and the police managed to arrest two armed men, a 27-year-old Colombian and a 38-year-old Franco-Tunisian. The latter was called Ahmez Ayari, whose National. The court had carried out a search and capture after the police identified him as the author of the Vidal-Quadras shooting.
First arrests
In the same month of the attack, in November 2023, the police carried out a first phase of the police operation. Naraya Gómez, a young Spanish Shiite convert who lived in Granada, was arrested. His partner was arrested at the same time as him, who was released subject to precautionary measures. In Naraya’s mobile phone were the first clues that pointed to Pacho. A few days after the attack, Naraya had written to the Hispano-Marocain: “Mission accomplished.”
During this first phase, a young Spaniard, resident in Malaga, who had participated in the purchase of the motorcycle used in the attack, was also arrested and was also released after giving a statement to the National Court.
Already in January, Colombian police arrested a Venezuelan who was trying to enter the country and whom Spanish authorities accuse of collaborating in the attack.
In April, Dutch police arrested a woman in that country for her alleged involvement in financing and planning the attack on Alejo Vidal-Quadras. A Dutch national, she was arrested on the basis of a European arrest warrant issued by Spain, pending its satisfaction.
This woman became an important element in the plot against Vidal-Quadras. He had a relationship with Ayari and his brother, who so far turns out to be the seventh and last arrested. The woman, Chahinez K., came to go to Lanjarón with Pacho to meet Naraya and the author of the material, Ayari.
Like Ayari, his brother lived in France. The arrest is the result of the progress of the Spanish police investigation, which resulted in an arrest warrant issued by the Central Court of Instruction number 1 of the National Court, which was executed by the authorities of the neighboring country.
The Iranian regime has been planning and carrying out attacks on European soil since 2019 against those it considers enemies, including Jewish individuals and interests, as published by the media consortium European Investigative Collaborationes (EIC), to which Infolibre belongs. The attacks have involved the participation of dangerous criminals in different parts of Europe. The aforementioned network is accused of setting fire to four Israeli companies in France. Germany discovered that Jewish citizens were being spied on in Berlin and Munich.
