The person allegedly responsible for sending a series of letter bombs to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid and to the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, at the end of last year was arrested this Wednesday (25).
The suspect is a 74-year-old pensioner with Spanish nationality and the initials “PGP”. He was arrested in Miranda de Ebro, in the north of the country, according to a note released by the Ministry of the Interior. “The operation […] remains open, and searches are being carried out at the detainee’s house”, said the folder, which added that the elderly man is adept at new technologies and very active on social networks.
He would have sent packages with explosives to at least six recipients – the other four were the US embassy in Madrid; the seat of the Spanish Ministry of Defence; an armaments factory that produced grenade launchers shipped to Ukraine; and a military base from which flights to the country invaded by Russian troops departed.
All the envelopes were sent from within Spain, and although the evidence indicates that the suspect manufactured and shipped the explosives autonomously, the federal police do not rule out the participation or influence of others in the process. “We are working with all possibilities,” Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told the press.
Except in the case of the Ukrainian embassy — where the package explosion superficially injured a guard — all envelopes were intercepted by security teams before reaching their recipients. Spanish justice has opened an investigation into a possible crime of terrorism.
At the time of the events, The New York Times stated that American and European intelligence services suspected that the Imperial Russian Movement (MIR) was behind the attacks.
The ultranationalist paramilitary group founded in 2002 would have acted by order of the Russian military intelligence service (GRU) – according to the American vehicle, the objective was to test the capacity of action of similar groups in the event of an escalation of the conflict. The Spanish Interior Ministry declined to comment on the information when contacted by the AFP.
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