Two Russians suspected of plotting a terror attack in Europe were charged in Spain on Sunday with belonging to an unnamed terror organization and possession of explosives, and placed under indefinite detention.
The judge who approved the charges also said a Turkish engineer who worked in Gibraltar for years and was arrested in the same case had paid for Spanish paragliding lessons for the men.
The court named the Russians of Chechen descent as Eldar Magomedov and Mohamed Ankari Adamov and said in a statement there was evidence linking them with “belonging to or forming part of a terrorist organization.”
The terror group was not specified, but Spanish authorities previously said it was al-Qaeda, and the Islamic network has many affiliates.
The two men were driven to the court in dark unmarked government cars under tight security on Sunday morning, escorted by police officers wearing masks to hide their identities.
Judge Pablo Ruz ordered both jailed incommunicado and indefinitely until a date is set for court proceedings, the court statement said.
Ruz said he decided to approve the charges after reviewing evidence provided by the US Department of Justice that included information from a witness currently under government protection, French judicial authorities and the police services of Gibraltar and Russia.
The Turk, named in the statement as Cengiz Yalcin, was charged on Friday with the possession of explosives and a device that could be used in a terror attack. He was also placed under preventive detention under Spain’s anti-terror laws.
Yalcin worked for years in the construction industry in Gibraltar and the explosive material was seized at his property in the southwestern Spanish city of La Linea, just across the border from the British colony and naval base.
The judge’s statement said the two Russians had also been living in La Linea, and that other evidence seized from Yalcin included passport photographs of the Russians and videos that could suggest preparation for a terror attack.
Evidence provided by Russia linked Magomedov with international terrorist organizations and said that he had been in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2010, the statement said.
It said evidence from the US revealed that Magomedov may have acted under the pseudonym of Muslin Dost, and had been involved in terrorist activity in 2010 in Afghanistan and Waziristan, a mountainous region in the northwest of Pakistan known as a terror training ground.
Both men traveled to France before entering Spain in April or May this year, where they stayed in La Linea. While there, both men allegedly took paragliding lessons paid for by Yalcin, the judge said.
The Russians were allegedly heading back to France when police moved in to arrest them in the city of Ciudad Real. Neither had any identification documents, but each is known by several aliases, the statement said.
While Ruz’s statement did not reveal the name of the terror organization the Russians are suspected of belonging to, it said both “partially acknowledged” links to it.
Spanish Minister of the Interior Jorge Fernandez Diaz last Thursday described the Russians as suspected al-Qaeda members and said the Turk was suspected of being a facilitator for them.
Yalcin was arrested on Thursday in La Linea, while the Russians were nabbed on Wednesday as they traveled by bus from the southern city of Cadiz toward the French border crossing at Irun. Cadiz is very close to the large US military base in Rota alongside the Mediterranean.
No mention was made in the judge’s report on whether the suspects may have been planning a terror attack using paragliders, but experts have been concerned that Islamic jihadists might try to use small planes to target events with many people out in the open.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS