Spain Pensioner Held Over Ukraine Embassy, PM Letter Bombs
Faizan Hashmi Published January 26, 2023 | 01:50 AM
Madrid, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jan, 2023 ) :Police arrested a pensioner Wednesday on suspicion he sent letter bombs targeting Spain's prime minister and the Ukrainian embassy, authorities said.
The 74-year-old Spaniard was taken into custody in Miranda de Ebro, in the north.
He was taken to Madrid and will appear before a judge on Friday, said a spokesman for the National Court which deals with terrorism cases.
Investigators searched the suspect's home where he was thought to have made six letter bombs, police and the interior ministry said.
Masked police stood guard outside the property as officers with sniffer dogs searched the interior, tv footage showed.
"This person was very active on social networks and according to National Police investigators, he has technical and computer expertise," an interior ministry statement said.
"Although it is presumed that the detainee made and sent the explosive devices alone, the police do not rule out the participation or influence of other people." Nobody was killed by the six letter bombs sent in late November and early December to various sites in Spain, but a Ukrainian embassy employee was lightly injured while opening one of the packages.
Letters were sent to the official residence of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, to Spain's defence ministry and to an air base near Madrid from which Spain has sent weapons to Ukraine.
Also targeted was a military equipment firm in the northeastern city of Zaragoza, which makes grenade launchers that Spain has sent to Ukraine.
After the Madrid embassy was targeted, Kyiv ramped up security at its embassies around the world.
- Paramilitary training - The arrest came after a weekend report in the New York Times which said Russian military intelligence officers had "directed" associates of a white supremacist militant group based in Russia to carry out the campaign in Spain.
US officials told the newspaper that the Russian officers who directed the campaign appeared intent on "keeping European governments off guard" and "may be testing out proxy groups in the event Moscow decides to escalate a conflict".
Investigators suspect the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), a radical group with members and associates across Europe, is behind the letter bomb campaign.
The group -- which is designated a global terrorist organisation by the United States -- is believed to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies.
"Important members of the group have been in Spain, and the police there have tracked its ties with far-right Spanish organisations," the newspaper said.
According to Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, RIM "maintains contacts with neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups across Europe".
"The group has provided paramilitary training to Russian nationals and members of like-minded organisations from other countries at its facilities in St. Petersburg," it added.
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