The Civil Guard revealed this Thursday that a 44-year-old imam from a Madrid mosque, suspected of radicalizing minors, has been arrested after praising the sacrifice of suicide bombers.
The now announced arrest took place on November 29. The imam worked in a mosque in the Spanish capital as an Arabic teacher and, according to authorities, used his position to call for violence and religious intolerance.
“In his speeches, [o detido] he exalted the suicide bomber as a legitimate figure in the fight against Jews, Christians and apostates. These theories were exposed in the classes that the detainee gave to minors as an example of behavior to be followed by all Muslims,” reads the note published on the official website of the Spanish Civil Guard.
The 44-year-old is suspected of recruiting young people into the ranks of Daesh and glorifying the sacrifice of suicide bombers in the fight against Jews and Christians. Home searches were also carried out at the suspect’s house, and this security force seized “computer elements for subsequent analysis.”
The investigation began last year, after a person was arrested in Madrid for being linked to the ideology of the extremist group Islamic State, while indoctrinating several minors for this purpose.
These activities did not go unnoticed within the community where they took place, meaning that one person was even forced to leave the mosque, having continued these practices elsewhere.
The Civil Guard points out that the terrorist recruitment of young people is one of the “emerging phenomena” worldwide, a problem that has already been identified in other recent investigations as “a worrying trend that must be combated.”
Source: TSF
