Spanish police have arrested a suspected radical Islamic extremist who allegedly procured an antique hand grenade that he was plotting to use to conduct a terrorist attack.
The man was arrested by the Mossos d’Esquadra, the police force of the autonomous community of Catalonia, on September 2nd and is said to have been in the advanced stages of radicalisation and looking to carry out a terrorist attack.
The investigation into the alleged jihadist began in May when police found a hand grenade from the era of the Spanish civil war, which took place from 1936 to 1939, in a vacant home in the town of Empuriabrava and investigations into the people who had procured the house led them to the suspect, Spanish newspaper El Mundo reports.
According to the newspaper, investigators were also able to find knives and a replica pistol in the man’s possession. The suspect was also said to have become increasingly aggressive and spoke out in favour of jihadist groups and that he was willing to carry out a violent action in Catalonia.
The suspect also changed his appearance during this time and has both consumed and shared jihadist propaganda material relating to martyrdom primarily and encouraged others to engage in violent action. The man has since been placed in a foreigner’s internment centre where he awaits possible deportation from Spain.
The arrest comes less than a month after Spanish authorities working with Austrian police arrested two jihadists who had come into the European Union illegally through the Balkan migrant route. One of the men, a Moroccan who had previously lived in Spain, was also arrested in Catalonia in the town of Mataró.
Radical Islamic extremism remains a threat in Spain, especially in Spanish prisons where officials were warned of threats from jihadi inmates earlier this year in May by the Spanish Interior Ministry, which noted an article in a Jihadi magazine that encouraged inmates to murder prison guards.