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Spain stops suicide bomber
A Frenchman of Moroccan origin caught with a crude bomb was a potential suicide attacker not a despondent, jilted lover as he originally told police and a Spanish judge has ordered him held on suspicion of terrorism, newspapers said Friday.The 30-year-old was stopped at a routine highway checkpoint Sunday in the northeast Catalonia region shortly after he drove across the border from France. Police found his car to be carrying two butane gas canisters fitted with large firecrackers, and a samurai sword. The man told police he wanted to committed suicide because his partner had left him, Catalan police said Monday on their web site. Police said then that they did not know why he drove all the way from his home in the Alsace region of France to kill himself in Spain. But investigators eventually found the man to be in possession of two Arabic-language letters one praising jihad, or holy war, and another in which he said goodbye to his family, and while in custody they observed he had shaved his body completely. They said this is a common act among suicide bombers who see it as a way to die in a state of cleanliness and purity, El Mundo said. Investigators concluded the man may have been planning a suicide attack targeting a building in Barcelona, El Mundo and El Pais said. Judge Juan del Olmo of the National Court questioned the suspect Thursday and ordered him held in jail on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack, the papers said. The judge also ordered a psychiatric evaluation of the man, they said. Posted by: ryuge 2007-10-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=202260 |