Dutch woman arrested for attempted murder of Spanish politician

NOS News•tomorrow, 00:34

A Dutch woman has been arrested for involvement in the assassination attempt on Spanish politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras in November last year. The woman was arrested in the Netherlands on the basis of a European arrest warrant, Spanish media report.

It is not clear where exactly she was arrested. She is suspected, among other things, of financing and preparing the assassination attempt.

The Dutch woman is the fifth person to be arrested, El País reports. The newspaper also writes that Spanish police have identified two other suspects, including the shooter. However, they have not yet been found.

A spokesperson for the Dutch police told ANP that he had nothing to say about the arrest and referred to the Spanish police.

Vidal-Quadras was probably shot by an assassin on November 9 last year. The 78-year-old politician was shot on the sidewalk in the Salamanca district of central Madrid. Witnesses say the gunman was wearing a helmet and rode away on a black Yamaha motorcycle.

The former leader and co-founder of the right-wing populist party Vox is said to have been hit in the face. He broke his jaw, but survived the attack.

Just under two weeks later, Spanish police arrested three people in the investigation into the attempted murder of the prominent politician.

Videl-Quadras was the Vice-President of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2007. In the 1990s he was the president of the Catalan branch of the Christian Democratic Party Popular. In 2014 he switched to the new party Vox.

The Spanish police have not yet made any statements about a possible motive, but Vidal-Quadras believes that Iran is behind it because of its ties with the Iranian opposition. Furthermore, he was shot on the day of a sensitive political deal: the Spanish government made an agreement with Catalan separatists. Quadras is strongly against this deal.