Alex Trelinski
A FRENCH citizen has been arrested in the Netherlands for allegedly shooting Spanish politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras in Madrid on November 9.
An International Arrest Warrant had been issued by the National Court for Mehrez Ayari, 37, who was born in Tunisia.
He is said to have an ‘extensive’ criminal record in France including being a suspect in a Paris murder.
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The co-founder of the far-right Vox party, aged 78, was shot in the jaw outside his home by a man on a motorbike but survived the attack.
Ayari’s arrest is the sixth carried out during the Policia Nacional operation.
A Dutch woman suspected of financing and preparing the assassination attempt on Vidal-Quadras was detained in the Netherlands on April 30.
Prior to that, Venezuelan national, Greg Oliver Higuera Marcano, was arrested on the Columbian border for allegedly buying the motorcycle used in the attack.
Naraya Gomez, 26, was arrested last year, alongside his British girlfriend, Sasha Brooks, in Lanjaron, Granada, for their part in the assassination plot.
Brooks was released on bail but Gomez was jailed ahead of trial proceedings.
Gomez is accused of helping hire Mehrez Ayari before travelling to a hotel in Madrid with him on the eve of the attack.
According to police, Gomez followed Ayari in his car on the day of the shooting.
After the hit, Ayari dumped the bike and set it on fire, before being picked up by Gomez to make his getaway.
Gomez’s blue hire car was spotted on CCTV in Madrid’s Barrio Salamanca in the weeks running up to the attack, tracking Vidal-Quadras’s movements.
The same car was later found illegally parked in Lanjaron, leading to his arrest.
The sixth person detained was a man in Funegirola- connected to the purchase of the motorbike.
