Terrorism

Alleged jihadist arrested in Palma on trial next month

Mohamed Harrak was arrested in April 2016. | Alejandro Sepúlveda

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma17/09/2017 00:00

Mohamed Harrak, who was arrested in Palma's Son Gotleu district in April 2016 and charged with terrorist offences, will go before Spain's Audiencia Nacional on 5 October. The prosecution service is seeking a sentence of ten years and the association for victims of terrorism, which is bringing a private prosecution, is seeking twelve years.

Harrak, 28, has been in prison since his arrest. He has consistently denied having had links to so-called Islamic State and maintains that he was in fact supplying information to the National Intelligence Centre (CNI). His defence case largely rests with telephone conversations said to have been with someone called Ángel at the CNI.

Among these conversations is advice given to Harrak on how to attract militants to IS via social networks. There is also a warning that he should stop speaking with a particular woman because she was about to be arrested. She was arrested.

The National Police have tried to identify the phone user, Ángel, and have discovered that there were several users, some of them criminals. The police have dismissed the idea that Ángel had ties with the CNI because of a "crude" way of acting.

The prosecution service is accusing Harrak of having been a member of IS. From September 2015 he had contacts via social networks in which he sought to get others to join him in travelling to Syria or Iraq. The most serious accusation is that on the whatsapp group Al Andalusi he proposed the making of material to carry out a terrorist attack.