Catalan police have arrested a radicalised man from the municipality of Empuriabrava suspected of planning an attack in Catalonia.
The man of Moroccan origin, who was under close police surveillance, as reported by the newspaper Diari de Girona, was arrested by the Mossos d’Esquadra on September 2 and is being held in the detention centre for foreigners in Barcelona, where he is awaiting deportation.
The 30-year-old allegedly indoctrinated himself by sharing jihadist content recalling the martyrs and tried to indoctrinate and incite others via social networks to commit crimes.
The Catalan newspaper reports that the discovery of a grenade from the Spanish Civil War in a house in Empuriabrava in May this year initiated surveillance of the man described as a jihadist ready to commit the deeds. This is because in the course of the investigation, the authorities discovered the identity of the buyer of this grenade, who had also bought “several cutting and stabbing weapons and a firearm”. The 30-year-old had also “changed his behaviour and physical appearance” and had become “more aggressive”.
The police assert that he planned to travel to a country in conflict following an attack in Catalonia. L’Indépendant