National Police arrest man in Melilla for activities of self-indoctrination and indoctrination of third parties as part of his support for global recruitment strategy of DAESH

Officers from the General Commissariat of Intelligence of the National Police, in collaboration with the Provincial Intelligence Brigade of Melilla, arrested an individual on Tuesday, 21 November in Melilla for his allegiance and commitment to the terrorist group DAESH, to which end he carried out recruitment tasks mainly through the Internet and social media. He also carried out indoctrination activities in his immediate surroundings and very intensive self-indoctrination activities.

The detainee, 21 years of age and of Spanish nationality, had suffered an intense process of radicalisation in which his criminal activity had evolved through continuous and progressive self-indoctrination that led him to exclusively surf the Internet in search of content related to DAESH. The videos he viewed were not only high quality with very violent and explicit content, but he also displayed a great domination of the Internet, since this propaganda and material designed to incite the commission of attacks is distributed through a communications network that is difficult to access precisely to ensure it is hard to locate.

According to the investigators, the detainee adopted extraordinary security measures and displayed a very cautious and reserved attitude in order to avoid being detected by police officers. He was very discreet on the Internet, and always displayed a private profile on the social media that was only accessible to his "friends", and avoided making comments in public that placed him on the side of DAESH, a discourse he reserved for meetings that he held with those people of his inner circle that he sought to indoctrinate and sign up to the Jihadi terrorist cause.

Furthermore, he had maintained direct contact with individuals sentenced for their membership of and integration in the terrorist group DAESH, convicted for recruiting, indoctrinating and sending combatants from Melilla and Morocco to conflict zones. These include an individual from Melilla who left in 2012 and became the leader of a Jihadi Katiba in Mali, who allegedly died in combat in Timbuktu in 2016. The continuous arrest of people in his immediate surroundings did not stop his activity, but rather increased and fuelled it.

Following this new operation, which involved neutralising a potential threat, since the detainee, after going through this strong process of self-indoctrination and moving on to a new phase of recruitment and indoctrination of new members, found himself at a point where he was fully prepared to receive instructions from the terrorist group that could have led him to carrying out such attacks as DAESH is calling for and follow the example of other terrorists that have committed attacks in Europe and in the United States.

During the course of the operation, the National Police will take statements from two other individuals, men aged 21 and 28 of Spanish origin, who, as a result of the indoctrination work of the main detainee, expressed their support for DAESH, including defending the terrorist attack in Barcelona in August. They were both immersed in an ongoing process of indoctrination and constantly viewed propaganda material from the organisation, and had even discussed and evaluated the possibility of carrying out attacks.

The operation, which remains ongoing, was carried out under the supervision of Central Investigation Court Number 2 in coordination with the Public Prosecutor's Office of the National High Court.

Since 26 June 2015, the date on which the Ministry of Home Affairs raised the Counter-Terrorism Alert Level to level 4 (Spanish acronym: NAA-4), law enforcement agencies have arrested a total of 209 Jihadi terrorists in operations carried out in Spain and abroad and a total of 254 since the start of 2015.

The Ministry of Home Affairs sends out a reminder that, through the initiative STOP RADICALISMOS, citizens can collaborate through a series of channels open to them so that, in a confidential and secure manner, they can notify the State law enforcement agencies of possible cases of radicalisation in their vicinity through the web page www.stop-radicalismos.es, the mobile phone app for citizens security alerts 'Alertcops' and the free hotline 900 822 066.

Non official translation