Advertisement

Jihadi cell threat to Spanish royal family

Fiona Govan
Fiona Govan - [email protected]
Jihadi cell threat to Spanish royal family
The King and Queen and their two daughters on holiday in Mallorca, August 2014. Photo: Jaime Reina / AFP

A jihadist cell that was ready to launch an attack on Spain before being dismantled by police last week had plans to target King Felipe VI, it has emerged.

Advertisement

Spain’s interior minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz, confirmed on Monday that, during raids on suspected jihadists across Spain last week police had found handwritten documents containing threats against the royal family.

"Felipe of Spain will know what suffering is when his two daughters are under the rubble," the note said according to statements filed before magistrate Javier Gómez Bermúdez at the National Court, according to a report in La Razon.

The threat was perceived to have refered to King Felipe and his two young daughters, the Infanta Leonor, the nine-year-old heir to throne and the Infanta Sofia, 7. 

Seven of the eight suspected members of a terrorist cell that were arrested in raids in various cities across Spain last Friday were remanded into custody on Sunday night following the hearing.

In statements given to it emerged that the paper was in the possession of the presumed ring leader of the group.

"The text is very unpleasant and shows the extent of radicalization of these people," judicial sources told the newspaper.

The jihadist cell used social media networks to recruit and radicalize and to spread "terror propaganda".

The interior minister said on Monday while on a trip to Ceuta, one of Spain’s north African enclave’s that some 80 percent of those rounded up in recent operations against terrorism were "operating in the service of the Islamic State," according to El Mundo newspaper.

 

 

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also