The National Police intervened on Saturday night with a gun to a soldier who was going to protest against the amnesty near the headquarters of the PSOE, in Calle Ferraz. In one of the security checkpoints – located on Marqués de Urquijo street in Madrid – the riot police confiscated the weapon with its belonging guide from the Ensign of the Land Army, assigned to the General Academy of Zaragoza ( document that identifies the weapon) and the TIP (professional identification card), as confirmed by sources from the Delegation of the Spanish Government in Madrid.
The intervention was registered at ten o’clock at night, after a hectic day in the Madrid capital, where at noon there was a massive protest against the measure of clemency for those accused of the process, which led to the cutting of the ‘A-6, when a group of demonstrators tried to go to the Moncloa palace.
Already at night, the protests returned to the PSOE headquarters, as in the last two weeks. About 1,500 people participated. And the night ended, according to police sources, with six men arrested. In addition, five attendees had to be treated for itchy eyes caused by a spray.
Among those arrested is not the soldier whose weapon was confiscated. The alferes is facing a proposed penalty for a serious breach of the Citizen Security law, known as the gag law. The fine for this type of sanction ranges from 601 euros to 30,000 euros. Both the military and the police can have a Type A weapons license for private use. The pistol that the soldier was carrying was not the standard weapon.
After the confiscation of the weapon during the sixteenth night of protests was made public, the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, condemned “totally and absolutely” the riots and violence that is taking place every night in the demonstrations around the headquarters of Ferraz. In his opinion, the concentrations are mostly made up of “peaceful people”. “A radical minority, without a doubt, cannot convey a wrong image of either the demonstration or the city of Madrid,” criticized Almeida.
