Gunman in Spanish politician’s shooting was set to kill Iranian in the Netherlands: Prosecutors

The 38-year-old Tunisian man arrested in the Netherlands on suspicion of shooting Spanish politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras was also preparing to assassinate an Iranian activist and journalist, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) said on Wednesday. The Iranian individual was not identified, but is currently living in the Netherlands.

The Tunisian suspect was taken into custody in Haarlem on June 6. The OM also revealed for the first time that the suspect was caught with an alleged co-conspirator, a 27-year-old man from Colombia. Both suspects are being kept in restricted custody, and can only have contact with an attorney. Typically, this also puts the OM under a gag order at this stage of the case. The OM has not confirmed the identity of the suspects.

A 27-year-old Dutch woman from Den Bosch was previously arrested in the Netherlands on suspicion of financing the attempt to kill Vidral-Quadras. A hearing on her extradition to Spain could happen later Wednesday afternoon. Police in Spain and Colombia arrested four other individuals in the murder plot.

Police in Noord-Holland were alerted to an unspecified suspicious situation on June 6, and quickly arrived at an address in Haarlem. "When they arrived, they saw two men running away. The officers gave chase on foot and were able to arrest both men. They appeared to be in possession of firearms," the OM said.

Sources previously told Spanish newspaper El País that the Tunisian man is Mehrez Ayari, the suspected gunman during the attack on Vidal-Quadras in Madrid last November. The newspaper said he was staying under a false name in Haarlem and was preparing another politically-motivated murder when he was arrested.

Vidral-Quadras almost immediately told investigators he believed he was attacked because of his ties to opponents to the Iranian regime. When he briefly regained consciousness after he was shot on November 9, he typed the word "Iran" on his phone and handed it to police, he told the Independent last month.

"I was lucky because I turned my head. Normally they aim for the head or neck. Instead the bullet went into my jaw and out the other side," he said. “I could not speak but I wanted them to know who it was so another group of terrorists were not blamed.”

The suspected gunman, Ayari, is also wanted for the hired hit on a drug trafficker in France two years ago. He reportedly has links to organized crime in the Netherlands. Another individual arrested in the Vidal-Quadras shooting, Narayan Gómez Mala, previously converted to become a Shiite Muslim, the branch of the religion most observed in Iran, El País said.

Moroccan citizen Sami Bekal Bounouare is still at large, and is suspected by Spanish police of being the mastermind in the attack on Vidal-Quadras. It is not yet clear if Ayari's link to organized crime include ties to Morocco and Colombia, but Ayari's brother is reportedly tied to a Dutch-Moroccan organized crime syndicate.

Those gangs have been linked in previous Dutch cases to criminal suspects and incidents in Spain, Morocco, Colombia, and elsewhere. These crimes include drug trafficking, homicide, and murder-for-hire plots.