The National Police reported detention in France of the brother of the material author of the attempt who suffered Alejo Vidal-Quadras in Madrid on November 9.
As reported by the National Police on the social network Tunisian nationality accused of direct participation in the planning and logistics of the attack against the former president of the Catalan PP and former founder of Vox, as well as the former vice-president of the European Parliament.
This is the seventh arrest made in the framework of this investigation led by the General Information Commission of the National Police. The arrest was made thanks to a European arrest and surrender order (OEDE) issued by Spain.
On June 19, police confirmed that the perpetrator of the attack, Mehrez Ayari, 37, had been arrested in the Netherlands, wanted for shooting Vidal-Quadras in the middle of the street in central Madrid. The fugitive was the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by the National Court and, for investigators, his arrest was essential to clarify the attempted murder.
The investigation determined that this Frenchman of Tunisian origin had multiple criminal records in France, his country of residence, as well as that on the day of the terrorist attack, he covered his face with a motorcycle helmet before shooting Vidal in the face at close range. Quadras.
Order from Iran
After the arrest of Mehrez Ayari, sources of the investigation confirmed to Europa Press that the main hypothesis of the assassination attempt was the participation order from Iran of the Mocro Maffiaa powerful Dutch-Moroccan criminal organization on the radar of many European countries for its extreme violence.
Previously, on April 30, National Police officers They arrested a woman also in the Netherlands for his alleged participation in the financing and preparation of the attack. The person under investigation is a Dutch national and was arrested under a European Arrest and Surrender Order (EASO) issued by Spain.
In January, as part of a police investigation, one of the alleged perpetrators of the attempted assassination, a Venezuelan citizen with an international search warrant for a terrorist crime in Spain.
The investigation carried out by the General Information Commission of the Police had already led to the arrest of three other people in Spain. The National Court sent to prison a person arrested in Lanjarón (Granada), a Spanish citizen converted to Islam in its Shiite dimension, for attempted terrorist assassination and released his partner, a woman of British origin, with precautionary measures, as well as a third detainee in Fuengirola (Málaga).
The Iranian trail
Police said on November 24 that they were keeping several lines of investigation open after verifying that the attack had been prepared “meticulously for weeks before the day of the events”, on November 9 in broad daylight in the center of Madrid, “including surveillance of the victim, purchase of material for its execution and meetings in different regions of Spain.”
On February 23, Alejo Vidal-Quadras held a press conference in Madrid in which he recounted the “miracle” that saved his life.I have no doubt it was the Iranian regime.“, he repeated several times, insisting on the so-called Iranian track.
Speaking to the media at an event held at the Madrid Press Association, Vidal-Quadras warned that he would not give up “his whole life” to support the Iranian opposition and called for stronger measures from the European Union, such as closing embassies and expelling personnel that country has deployed to the West.
In addition, he expressed confidence in the ongoing investigation in the National Court and in the investigations of the General Information Commission of the National Police, while acknowledging that “it is not easy to establish the relationship between the detained hitmen and the Iranian regime.” “I hope to have all the confidence and respect in the Spanish judicial system,” he stressed.
Vidal-Quadras acknowledged that since he appeared in a blacklist of alleged enemies of Iran He was already “worried”, even though he had never, even a few days before the attack in Madrid, when he was returning from a walk in the Retiro Park, “noticed anything or received any threats”. In this sense, he expressly thanked the Ministry of the Interior for its “willingness” to increase, after the assassination attempt, his security with a “very complete” device.
Vidal-Quadras said that on November 9, the day of the attack, he was returning from a walk in Madrid’s Retiro Park towards his house and, at one point, he heard the voice of someone behind him, very close, saying: “Good morning, sir.”
The former president of the Catalan PP said that turned his head and that it was this movement that meant the shot was not fatal, because the bullet entered on one side of the jaw and exited on the other. “It was a miracle,” he said, before going on to detail his dizziness and that a citizen covered the wound with a lot of blood helped with his sweatshirt.
The shot seemed so close that it hit his eardrum and he thought at the time that he was a victim of the Iranian regime in retaliation for his support of dissidents.
