Spain arrested man suspected of arming Jewish supermarket attacker

BARCELONA, Spain – A man suspected of having supplied weapons to Amedy Coulibaly, the terrorist who attacked a Jewish supermarket in Paris last year, has been arrested in the south of Spain, according to the Interior Ministry.

The man, a 27-year old French national identified as Antoine Denevi, was arrested together with other two people from Serbia and Montenegro. All are related to arms trafficking, according to the statement.

Police believe Denevi provided arms and munitions to Coulibaly, who is accused of first having killed and injured two policemen in a town near Paris. He later attacked a Jewish supermarket in the French capital, killing four people and injuring other four, according to authorities. He was killed by the French police during a confrontation.

The men in Spain were arrested Wednesday in the village of Rincon de la Victoria, in the Southern province of Malaga, according to the ministry.

In March, police in Spain impounded three containers, one in the southern port of Algeciras and the other two in the eastern Mediterranean city of Valencia. One contained used clothing and the other two had five tons of new military uniforms to be sent to ISIS, the terrorist group operating in Syria and Iraq which has claimed responsibility for Coulibaly´s attacks and other attacks in Europe.

The company which owned the containers had been established by a Syrian man resident in Spain who had an import-export textile business dedicated to supplying ISIS, according to reports.  

The containers had arrived from Saudi Arabia, but according to local official sources, the uniforms appeared to have been made in a NATO country and were ready to be shipped to Turkey, first to the port of Mersin and from there  by road towards Bab al-Hawa in Syria.

The network, which was operating under the cover of sending humanitarian help  not only was sending uniforms, but any other supplies to the terrorist group, including fertilizers for use in explosives, according to local sources.

In February. seven suspected members of ISIS were arrested in the Spanish region of Valencia, in the Spanish northern enclave of Ceuta, in Morocco, and in different villages in the Spanish province of Alicante. They were charged with providing logistical support for terrorist activities in Iraq and Syria and trying to get women for militants in those two countries.

Recently, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said in reference to ISIS that the group is not just a terrorist organization like any other, but a proto-state.  That would explain the reason for the group needing military clothing, to give the militants an apparent look of a real army.

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