Second Islamic radical ‘with links to Al-Qaeda’ arrested

10 November 2004

BARCELONA- Spanish police said they arrested two Pakistanis suspect overnight in Barcelona for alleged membership in an Islamic terrorist group police said they had broken up in a September raid in the northeastern city.

Spanish judge Ismael Moreno ordered the operation, which arrested the first 10 Pakistani suspects on September 15.

They have been placed in preventive detention pending charging for suspected membership in a terrorist group and drug trafficking.

The identity of the latest suspects was not disclosed, nor their alleged role
in the group.

They were both arrested late Tuesday.

The first 10 had several kilogrammes (pounds) of high-quality heroin and forged documents in their possession when detained, according to police, who also said they are not suspected of involvement in the March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people in the country’s worst-ever terrorist attack.

The 10 also held videos, one of which, filmed in 2002, showed images of several well-known buildings in Barcelona, including the World Trade Centre and the Maremagnum leisure centre.

Judicial sources said the video images were not those normal tourists would take and that some footage shows imams calling for jihad (‘holy war’).

The two new suspects were arrested during police raids on five locations in Barcelona’s Raval district, where much of the city’s Pakistani community lives, police said.

The daily El Pais, citing police sources, reported last month that the group was helping finance the Al-Qaeda terror network through money transfers to Pakistan.

It said the Barcelona group in 2004 reportedly transferred money in the name of three people close to Kuwaiti suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is detained in the United States and considered one of the brains behind the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.
  
[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news