First arrest made after Twitter users post messages praising León shooting
Authorities detain 19-year-old after he wrote a slew of tweets calling for politicians to be shot Interior Minister Jorge Fernández has pledged to go after anyone who glorifies killing
A 19-year-old man has been released from policy custody pending charges after his arrest for posting messages on Twitter calling for more politicians to be murdered. The tweets were written on the micro-blogging site in the wake of the killing of Spanish Popular Party politician Isabel Carrasco on Monday, in an apparent revenge attack allegedly perpetrated by a former employee of the León Provincial Council and her mother.
The youngster, identified by his initials Sergio B. J., was detained by police on Thursday in the Valencia town of Tavernes de la Valldigna. He was taken before a judge on Friday morning, who named him as an official suspect for the crime of defense of the commission of murder.
While he has been freed from police custody, Sergio B. J. will have to regularly report at a local courthouse, according to judicial sources in Valencia.
There are still a lot left to kill. You can call me radical, but that’s the way it is. We need more shots fired”
The youngster was arrested as part of an operation launched by the Civil Guard this week in the wake of a slew of messages posted on the social networks that approved the shooting of Carrasco, who was the head of the León Provincial Council.
Sergio B. J. posted a series of messages referring to Monday’s incident, saying: “There are still a lot left to kill. You can call me radical, but that’s the way it is. We need more shots fired.” And: “One shot in the head and each of them in a mass grave. Like they did with my great-grandfather,” the latter comment an apparent reference to a Civil War execution.
In another message, he requested an AK-47 machine gun so he could shoot politicians.
Sergio B. J. is the first person to be arrested for “expressing his approval” of the shooting of Carrasco. Spain’s interior minister, Jorge Fernández, announced on Tuesday that his department would be investigating offensive messages related to the death of the Provincial Council leader.
On April 28, 21 people were arrested in Spain on suspicion of glorifying terrorism via the social networks. All were released 24 hours later. The Civil Guard has reported that it is seeking a further 200 people for glorifying Basque terrorist group ETA on the internet.
