The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, met yesterday with parliamentary spokespersons to inform them about the level of anti-terrorist alert in Spain within the framework of the escalation of tension in Israel. Without making an express mention of Vox – which in recent days has further hardened its discourse against migrants whom it links to crime –, the head of the Interior asked “not to confuse” irregular immigration and the fight against terrorism. “It is very dangerous,” he warned.
Just as dangerous – he continued to warn – are the hoaxes that spread on networks like wildfire about false attacks. However, when asked by journalists, the head of the Interior did not specify the tools that the State has to pursue this type of misinformation that is generating great social alarm. The line is so thin with freedom of expression that the minister could not say whether measures will be taken to prosecute the creators of hoaxes.
At the meeting, which lasted two hours and was attended by all the groups except ERC, which was absent due to scheduling problems, he informed the parties that the alert level has not been raised because no intelligence report warns of a “ “imminent attack.” It has never been reached to such an extreme. Not even after the attack on Las Ramblas.
The minister, according to sources present at the meeting, stressed several times the surveillance that is being carried out in prisons to detect radicalization processes. A jihadist focus that has been worrying the ministry for some time. He also reported that last year 44 people were expelled from the country for putting national security at risk.
On the sidelines of the meeting, the National Police reported yesterday that it had carried out an operation against jihadism after two of those investigated increased their radicalization, going so far as to record videos in which they threatened to “shed blood” to “recover Al Andalus and restore the caliphate.” This is a couple who lived in Cubelles (Barcelona) since they met –precisely– in the chat with jihadist content that the General Information Commissioner’s Office was investigating, under the coordination of the National Court’s Prosecutor’s Office.
The investigation began last year after experts in the fight against terrorism detected that a 22-year-old young man living in Huétor Tájar (Granada) had created closed social media groups to indoctrinate in jihadism. According to police sources, the leader, nicknamed El Califa, was in charge of recruiting combatants, selecting the most radical and once he gave them access to the groups, he encouraged them to speak directly about the terrorist cause.
It was in these groups where the arrested couple became known. He about twenty years old; She is 31. They strengthened ties virtually, the same sources explain, and then formalized the marriage once The Caliph authorized the union.
The new relationship represented “a turning point”, since the agents who followed their steps detected that both arrested people “exponentially increased their level of radicalization.” The possible risk that they would take action led to arrests in Granada, Barcelona and another in Madrid.
The head of the investigating court number 5 of the National Court, Santiago Pedraz, yesterday agreed to the imprisonment of El Califa and the couple, and released with precautionary measures the fourth of those arrested, the young man detained in Madrid.
