MADRID—Police in Barcelona detained an Algerian male wished in the U.S. for allegedly overseeing a failed plot to destroy a Swedish cartoonist who had poked exciting at the Prophet Muhammad.
Ali Charaf Damache, fifty many years previous, was taken into custody by Catalonia regional police Thursday, Catalan authorities said. He was indicted in the U.S. in 2011 as the alleged ringleader of “a violent jihad organization” that provided female converts to Islam from Colorado and Philadelphia, the latter of whom went by the alias “JihadJane.”
Mr. Damache was transferred to the custody of the Nationwide Courtroom in Madrid, which is keeping him in jail, Catalan authorities stated. Jordi Jane, interior minister for the location of Catalonia, said police experienced been tipped off by a contact to an emergency telephone line.
It was not possible to instantly achieve Mr. Damache or to understand if he experienced a lawyer.
Mr. Damache, who went by the alias “Theblackflag” experienced beforehand been detained in Eire, in which he is a resident, on charges unrelated to the U.S. indictment. In Might, the Dublin High Court denied an extradition ask for by U.S. authorities, citing the chance that Mr. Damache would be placed in solitary confinement. The court docket explained solitary constitutes “inhuman and degrading treatment method,” and authorized Mr. Damache to wander free of charge.
The U.S. indictment alleges that Mr. Damache conspired with other individuals to recruit, finance and provide logistical assist in a plot to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks. The cartoonist had depicted the head of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad on the human body of a canine. Between other evidence, the indictment suggests that Mr. Damache in 2009 despatched an electronic mail to one more alleged conspirator seeking to recruit “some brothers that can travel freely…with EU passports…(and) some sisters as well.”
Mr. Damache is alleged by U.S. authorities to have utilised the World wide web to recruit Jamie Paulin Ramirez, of Colorado, whom he subsequently lured to Europe and married. While the two ended up living with each other in Europe, he began instruction her youthful little one in jihad, the indictment suggests.
Ms. Ramirez pleaded responsible to offering content assistance to terrorists and was sentenced last yr to eight years in prison. Another conspirator, Colleen R. LaRose, who employed the alias “JihadJane” pleaded responsible to expenses, including conspiracy to supply material support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill in a foreign region. She acquired a 10 year sentence.
Spanish authorities have been ramping up functions from suspected extremists in the wake of the January assault on the places of work of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. Spain has detained seventy three men and women on terrorism-relevant costs inside its borders, when compared to 36 previous 12 months. Another 27 have been detained outside of Spain.
Write to Matt Moffett at matthew.moffett@wsj.com
