madrid: Spain’s High Court on Tuesday ordered a 17-year-old student suspected of having links to the Islamic State group and planning an attack on a high school to be held in a juvenile detention center for at least six months. I ordered.
The Syrian student was arrested early Monday in the southern town of Montellano, near Seville, and charged with belonging to a terrorist organization and possessing explosives.
Jose Luis de Castro, the judge in charge of the court’s juvenile division, said in his order that “these serious felonies” warranted pretrial detention.
The judge said there was “credible evidence” that the suspect had obtained various materials used in homemade explosives and instructions for making them, and that the suspect had promoted his allegiance to Islamic State on social media. He added that he had sworn.
The suspect had lived with his mother and 10-year-old sister in Montellano, a town of 7,000 people, for two years. All three have received refugee status, said Montellano Mayor Curro Gil.
The judge said the young man was “highly radicalized, obsessed with all things military, wears camouflage uniforms, and is extremely homophobic and anti-Semitic.”
A police spokesperson declined to comment on the incident, citing the fact that the suspect was a minor.
El Mundo newspaper quoted police officials on Tuesday as saying they believed the suspect’s attack on the high school was imminent, which led to his arrest.
Already under police surveillance on Sunday, the suspect went to the vacant lot where the explosions were heard and may have been testing explosives, the judge said.
Several parents stopped their children from attending school on Monday after the suspect sent a message to some classmates via WhatsApp saying, “Tomorrow is a big day,” state news agency EFE reported. He has decided not to.
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