Spanish police arrest man with links to jihadist terrorism in Valladolid

Terrorism

The police launched a large deployment and a four-hour search of the flat where the detainee had been living for the past two weeks

Álvaro Muñoz

At approximately 6.30am on Monday, several Guardia Civil units were urging a supermarket delivery vehicle to finish unloading as quickly as possible so that the road in the La Rubia neighborhood in Valladolid would be completely clear. The delivery driver expedited his work to allow the units to deploy.

More than a dozen officers entered the building and went directly to flat 1B. Inside the property, the police focused their search on a rear bedroom. After a four-hour operation, they left the room in disarray, with the bed overturned as specialist units from the elite force carried out a detailed search.

The Guardia Civil operation targeted an individual suspected of jihadist terrorism. They removed several boxes from the property during the raid before detaining a man in his 30s. He had reportedly lived in the flat for around two weeks.

Other tenants in the shared flat said they did not know what activities the suspect carried out. Residents also said they had not noticed any unusual behaviour in recent weeks, although the large-scale police presence caused confusion across the neighbourhood. Property owners declined to comment.

This counter-terrorism operation comes two months after the National Court sentenced a resident of Tudela de Duero, Michele Vanessa, to two and a half years in prison for consuming Daesh propaganda across a range of electronic devices. The police arrested her in July 2023, following another deployment in the province of Valladolid.

The Guardia Civil's rapid intervention three years ago followed intelligence indicating an accelerated process of radicalisation involving the young woman. During searches, the elite unit seized nine electronic devices (mobile phones, USB drives, computers and tablets).

A detailed forensic analysis showed that the suspect stored and edited translated publications within her electronic files, intended, according to investigators, "to be disseminated in third countries as part of the organisation's project".

That documentation also included PDF files circulated in various forums. These contained books published since the emergence of Daesh, with titles that "point to countries where they seek to expand". Investigators concluded that they formed part of "the organisation's communication project, where they already held a certain level of ideological and operational influence".

The Guardia Civil have stated that the investigation remains open.

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