On February 8, on the third day of rural protests in numerous areas of Spain, nine farmers approached an industrial warehouse of a fruit and vegetable company in El Ejido (Almería, 87,500 inhabitants) late in the afternoon. They had met after meeting on different internet forums. With their faces covered with hoods, caps, panties or masks, they threw several tires and a mattress inside the facilities and set them on fire and then quickly fled the scene. From inside, a worker who saw them ran to lower the metal access door, which was left halfway and in 30 seconds thick black smoke covered the interior of the premises. The National Police has now arrested the nine men responsible for the flames for the crime of aggravated arson. The property housed 25 employees at that time. “It could have been a tragedy,” police sources acknowledge. Those arrested are already on provisional release with charges.
The events occurred at 7:29 p.m. on February 8, as reflected by the security cameras of the attacked company. This is a company – which asks to keep its name confidential – dedicated to the import of fruits and vegetables from Morocco. This is the reason why the group of farmers marked her as a target and decided to attack her. In the images you can clearly see how they arrive loaded with wheels and a mattress, sprinkle a can of gasoline on the floor and, with a lighter, set it on fire. The flames grew quickly, like smoke, of great intensity and covered the interior of the ship in a few seconds. Meanwhile, the perpetrators escaped first on the run and then in several cars with the lights off.
Inside the building there were 25 workers – Spanish and foreign – who managed to escape through the emergency door, although some tried to put out the flames before because they feared that it would spread through the plastic and hundreds of wooden pallets that were in the facilities. . One of them was injured by smoke inhalation and was taken by ambulance to the Poniente University Hospital. Police sources explain that inside there were “tons of highly flammable material” and that the smoke was very intense. “It could have ended the lives of the employees in a few minutes if they had not had another escape,” explain sources close to the case. The first police patrols that went to the scene and, above all, the firefighters, later managed to extinguish the fire, which caused damage worth 26,000 euros.
Aware that there were workers
The El Ejido Judicial Police Brigade then launched an investigation – the so-called Operation Fénix – to identify the perpetrators. He located them in different protest forums due to the situation in the countryside, which were very active those days because it was one of the first days of mobilizations in different areas of the country. The investigation has revealed that the alleged perpetrators of the events had no more relationship with each other than their participation in the chats, in which they became radicalized little by little, giving each other feedback until they planned to carry out the fire of the company. They chose it because of its commercial relationship with products from Morocco.
They also knew that at that time there would be workers inside. "It is significant that the detainees were perfectly aware of the existence of operators on the ship at the time of the events and still continued with a plan that could have claimed human lives," the National Police underlines in a statement, which after a complex investigation has managed to find the nine responsible. They were arrested last Saturday, April 13, accused of aggravated arson. Hours later they were brought before the court, which ordered their provisional release.
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