The Police of Ecuador arrested on Wednesday in the Ecuadorian town of Cuenca, located in the southern center of the country and with 580,000 inhabitants, to Walter Alexander T., 45, a man with dual Spanish and Ecuadorian nationality, who had exhibited a “manifest hatred to Spain” on social networks and planned to carry out an attack in international embassy facilities in Ecuador, according to sources of the investigation, in which the national police have participated Spanish. Sources consulted have not specified whether the Spanish embassy was among its objectives. The detainee has been brought to court for his alleged participation in a crime of integration in terrorist organization.
The arrested was “highly radicalized” by the postulates of the terrorist group (ISIS), as reported on Friday the National Police. He repeated “terrorist phylum” in Spanish, idealized the figure of the martyrs and commemorated attacks such as the largest terrorist attack against the United States, or 11-M, against and the Atocha station, add sources of the investigation. ISIS is “known for its videos of decapitations and other types of executions, both soldiers and civilians, journalists and even members of humanitarian aid, as well as the destruction of historical places of cultural heritage,” said the Ecuadorian police.
The investigation began in June 2024, when agents of the General Information Police Station of the National Police (specialized in crimes of terrorism) detected on the Internet the profile of a “highly radicalized” person. During the investigation, they found that their messages on social networks showed their intention to attempt in the international embassy facilities of Ecuador “all with a motivation of jihadist ideology.”
A group of Spanish agents specialized in the anti -terrorism struggle moved to Ecuador to participate in the operation in which Walter Alexander T. was arrested, with two criminal records for theft. During the performance, the agents registered the house and intervened six mobile devices and a computer, effects that are being analyzed.
In 2024, the security forces carried out 49 antiyihadist operations in Spain that resulted in 81 detainees, the largest number of arrested of the last 20 years, according to data from the Ministry of Interior. Of the 81 detainees, 32 (about 40%) were less than 25 years old, according to the year’s data on the fight against Islamist violence in Spain, created by the group of victims of terrorism-covite). According to this work, the Spanish and Moroccan nationality represent the majority of those arrested. Carlos Igualada, author of the report, considers “especially significant” the presence of whose profiles are usually associated with other crimes outside jihadism, something that follows a trend observed in 2023, when various people of Brazilian, Peruvian and Colombian nationality were also arrested. Until February 25, 16 people had been arrested in Spain for jihadist terrorism.
