Garzon's been busy ...Another Islamic fundamentalist unit, allegedly funding terrorism, was rounded up on the Costa del Sol by Civil Guards in the early hours of Friday morning last week. According to investigators the gang members had passed on âthousands of eurosâ to terrorists belonging to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. These sums of money, which came largely from burglaries in luxury mansions on the Costa del Sol, were earmarked for financing Al Qaeda groups in North Africa.
The operation, dubbed âGreenâ, started a year ago and ended last Friday with seven people under arrest - five Algerians, one Kosovar Albanian and a Spanish woman - in the El Perchel and Churriana districts of Malaga, in Torremolinos, Benalmádena, Estepona, Monda and Marbella.
The Minister of the Interior, José Antonio Alonso, explained that the group was âhighly structured with a rigid hierarchyâ. Sources close to the investigation added that the members of the unit had a high standard of living, inhabiting large detached houses and following a western way of life without attracting attention to themselves. The seven arrested allegedly duplicated credit cards, stole luxury vehicles and forged documents, as well as burgling luxury mansions from which they only stole gold and cash. These houses were carefully picked by one of those arrested, a well-known real estate agent on the Costa del Sol.
Anti-terrorism sources revealed that in the last year alone the unit had âamassed vast sums of moneyâ and jewellery that had been sent to Algeria. The Minister explained that the gang sent large amounts of cash to Al Qaeda bases in North Africa using a âcomplicated system of bank transfersâand that these funds included amounts for terrorist groups in both Mauritania and Libya. Sums of money were even sent to the taliban in Afghanistan. The sources explained that on occasions the gang members even gave money in large denomination banknotes of 500 euros to an Algerian cleric. The Minister added that this unit was identical to the one broken up in Alicante and Granada on November 23rd. In that case four people were sent to prison.
The gang members arrested were taken to Madrid where they gave statements to the National Court on Monday. They all denied the charges against them.On Tuesday three of the seven, all Algerians, were sent to prison without bail by the judge, charged with collaborating with an armed gang. A fourth, also Algerian, was allowed bail of 3,000 euros. The rest, a Kosovar Albanian, an Algerian woman and a Spanish woman, were released on remand with charges pending and ordered to report to the court regularly.
The Minister insisted that there was no evidence that the gang was planning an immediate attack.
| "No, no, certainly not!" |
Investigations by Dutch police into Van Goghâs murder led to a connection between Bouyeri, alias Abu Zubair, and other Islamic activists. Homes linked to Bislam Achamedovich Ismailov and Kabez Ismailov were searched. The former was arrested in France and extradited to Holland while the latter is serving a prison sentence in Peru.