One of the four terror suspects arrested as part of a Spanish-led pan European anti terrorist operation early on Wednesday morning was planning a stabbing murder spree in Majorca mirroring the London Borough Market carnage, a Spanish judge said.
One of the four terror suspects is said to have been radicalised by British-based cleric Tarik Chadlioui, who regularly visited the four here in Majorca and often gave talks to the local Muslim community, and was planning a massacre on the island, authorities believe after the four appeared before a High Court judge in Madrid yesterday. All four were last night in jail with bail denied.
Moroccan Abdelkader Mahmoudi was allegedly stopped from a plot to stab members of the public to death like the terrorists who caused carnage in London on 3 June, a Spanish judge said. The attack is believed to have been planned for a central square in Inca.
In the court the suspect apparently spoke of his intention to go on a killing spree in order to convert himself into a martyr. He also spoke about his belief in Jihadism. Court sources said that he also admitted to having produced and posted videos on the social networks aimed at radicalising other Muslims.
Having listened to tapped telephone conversations and watched the video material and other images seized from the three properties raided in Majorca, the judge Santiago Pedraz concluded that all four were members of a cell which was created and being controlled by the Birmingham-based Imam Tarik Chadlioui who recruited people for Jihadist cells and visited the four on a number of occasions to set the cell up and see how it was going.
Sources close to the operation, which is ongoing, have said that of late, the Majorcan cell was attracting a great deal of interest from young Muslims.
One of the videos called Toufiq se fue a Siria had 12,000 followers on Facebook and showed how a young Muslim living in Spain was radicalised and decided to join the fight in Syria.
In this video, directed by Tarik, three of the four Majorcan suspects took part as actors.
The judge decided to hold them all on remand because of the high risk of them fleeing and the severity of the charges.
Another of the four, named as Azzouz Azdad, apart from being accused of also making videos and trying to radicalise young Muslims, is also suspected of having used funds raised by the mosque for his own private needs. He was also found in the possession of Islamic State material on how to train children to become terrorists and executions which had been carried out by minors.
Judge Pedraz accused Abderraham Farid of having organised clandestine meetings of new or potential members of the cell while the fourth suspect, Ali Mtioi of being a Jihadist who believed it was his “obligation” to talk about his beliefs in public. On his Facebook page police found a lot of ISIS material and videos of some of the meetings he had held to try and radicalise other Mulsims.
Judge Pedraz also described them as suspected members of a group created by Chadlioui, 44, ‘to lend support to terror organisation ISIS through the elaboration of propaganda and the indoctrination of new members.’
The imam, who preached at the mosque attended by one of the gunman who joined the massacre of 89 people at Paris’s Bataclan theatre in November 2015, was also held at his home in Birmingham on Wednesday. He is currently fighting extradition to Spain.