The alleged author of a salvo of letter bombs addressed at the end of last year to the Ukrainian embassy in Spain or to the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been arrested, according to a police source.
This man, "a 74-year-old retiree", was arrested in Miranda de Ebro, in northern Spain, said this source, without giving further details.
The security officer at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid had been slightly injured in the right hand when opening one of these letters, intended for the ambassador.
Letters had also been sent to the Minister of Defence, to an arms company manufacturing grenade launchers donated by Madrid to kyiv at the start of the Russian invasion or to an important Spanish military base.
Spanish justice had opened an investigation for alleged acts of “terrorism”, while kyiv had ordered a reinforcement of security in all its representations.
According to the American daily The New York Times, American and European intelligence services suspect a Russian paramilitary group, the Russian Imperial Movement (MIR), of being behind this campaign of sending letter bombs.
Former town hall official
This ultranationalist and white supremacist group, listed on the American list of terrorist organizations in 2020, would have acted underhand for Russian military intelligence (GRU), said the American daily in an article published on Sunday.
But according to sources quoted by El Païs, the person arrested is of Spanish nationality and worked until his retirement as a civil servant at the town hall of Vitoria.
The investigation indicates that he would have acted alone and that he is not linked to any group.
The police searched this Wednesday morning his home in the city of Burgos.
The Spanish Interior Ministry declined to comment on this information.