The National Court opened an investigation declared secret into a possible crime of jihadist terrorism after an intervention by the National Police on Saturday in the Madrid neighborhood of Vallecas to sedate an individual who was behaving violently with a knife. The young man involved, a Spanish national, would have shouted some phrases in Arabic at the time of the arrest, according to police sources cited by Efe. After police intervention, he was seriously injured, with gunshot wounds to the chest and hip.
The head of the Central Investigative Tribunal Number 3 of the National Court, María Tardón, opened the proceedings, as confirmed by legal sources. The police investigations are ascertaining whether the injured person is the same person who, hours earlier, had attacked three people in the street with a knife, without this alleged attack having any major consequences.
The incident began after an emergency call made last Saturday afternoon by a minor in which he stated that his 18-year-old brother was very upset. His call mobilized the officers of the Local Police and the National Police, who went to a house in Peña de Atalaya street in Madrid. There they found the young man alone and with a behavior that, according to police sources, suggested that he was under the influence of psychotropic substances.
To avoid being subdued, the attacker attempted to escape from officers armed with a knife, which prompted officers from both forces to use their stun guns, known as Tasers, largely unsuccessfully due to the excited state in which he was found. Subsequently, the National Police mobilized members of the Police Intervention Unit (UIP), who went to the house. Once there, faced with the risk that the young man would attack them with the knife he was carrying to injure them, the police officers were forced to use firearms. The alleged attacker suffered gunshot wounds to the chest and hip.
A team of healthcare workers treated the injured man and transferred him with a serious prognosis to the Gregorio Marañón hospital. No officers were injured, according to police sources. Before these events, and in the vicinity of Vallecas’ house, there had been an attempted stabbing of some passers-by, without significant consequences, which is being investigated if linked to the same suspect. The Madrid Provincial Information Brigade (BPI, charged with investigating, among other crimes, terrorism crimes) took charge of the investigation. The report they prepared was sent to the National Tribunal.
