James Warren
A practicing ISIS fanatic has been arrested in Madrid last night as he prepared to travel to Syria to join the terrorist organisation.
Officers from the Policia Nacional and the Comisaría General de Información raided a property in the Las Rozas district of the capital late last night and detained a Spanish man with connections to Daesh.
According to the police report, the man was squatting in the unoccupied home and using it as a base to research and communicate to other radical groups via social media.
An investigation began back in September into possible ISIS connections across the country.
The cyber squad of the Policia Nacional detected, among others, suspicious activity coming from an IP address in the heart of Madrid, and identified the man as undergoing a radical change in behaviours online.
On his social media profiles, he interacted with active Jihadist fighters in the Middle East, as well as sharing and excusing ISIS videos of beheadings and other atrocities, including the beheading of a French professor back in October.
The investigation determined that the suspect squatted in various properties across the capital to avoid detection, and was in an ‘advanced state of radicalization’ by the time officers reached him.
As the arrest was made, the suspect showed plans to leave Spain to travel to the Syrian city of Idlib to become ‘ISIS’s best sniper’ and to offer himself as a matyr to the Jihadist movement.
The man was detained and brought before the National Court where he will be sentenced to jail for crimes of belonging to a terrorist organisation.
