The alleged perpetrator of the assassination attempt in early November against Alejo Vidal-Quadras, former Spanish vice-president of the European Parliament and close to the Iranian opposition, was arrested in the Netherlands, where he had fled, announced Wednesday the Spanish police. “Dutch police officers have arrested in the Netherlands the alleged perpetrator of the shooting” against this former right-wing elected official, the police said on the social network X, without giving his identity.
Spanish police had previously indicated that they had issued an international arrest warrant against this suspect, presented as a Frenchman of Tunisian origin with several criminal records in France. In a statement, the Dutch public prosecutor’s office confirmed the arrest, specifying that it took place “in Haarlem on Thursday June 6.” This “38-year-old” man was “wanted in Spain for attempted assassination of a politician,” he added.
From Tehran to the Moroccan mafia
According to Spanish media, this suspect is called Mehrez Ayari and is linked to the “Mocro Maffia”, a criminal organization of Moroccan origin established in the Netherlands. He was also wanted by French justice in an assassination case. His arrest is “the sixth” carried out as part of the investigation carried out for seven months into the attempted assassination of Alejo Vidal-Quadras, specifies the Spanish police in its message on X.
The latter was attacked by an armed man in a street in Madrid on November 9 as he returned from a walk. Hit in the jaw, he miraculously survived, a passerby having stopped his bleeding with a piece of clothing. During a press conference three and a half months after the events, the former right-wing elected official, who has always been close to Iranian opposition movements, accused Tehran of being behind the attack.
“I have no doubt that it is the Iranian regime”, which has “a long tradition (…) of extraterritorial terrorist activities” against “dissidents and foreigners who support them”, declared Alejo Vidal-Quadras, who suffers from after-effects since this assassination attempt. Among the five people previously arrested in the investigation are a Venezuelan, but also a British woman and two Spaniards suspected of having provided logistical assistance to the main suspect, as well as a Dutch woman accused in particular of having participated in the financing of the attack .
Aged 79, Alejo Vidal-Quadras chaired the Popular Party (PP, conservative) in the Catalonia region in the 1990s, before becoming an MEP and serving as vice-president of the European Parliament between 1999 and 2014. After left the PP, he was one of the founders, in 2013, of the far-right party Vox, which he left shortly after.