The Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) Pitesti has conducted three searches in Arges in a terrorism-related file, the suspect ‘Ibrahim’, a Romanian citizen has been remanded, being accused of entering the area of a Romanian military objective to collect information in order to be deliver it to a ‘Salafist and pro-jihadist entity’ in another EU country.
The 39-year-old Romanian has radicalized after spending several years in another EU country where he has developed ties with a jihadist group. He had the domicile in Lunca Corbului, but actually lived in Muşăteşti commune.
The Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) began investigations on him in 2015, when he informally studied a Romanian military objective (according to sources – military base Mihail Kogalniceanu in Constanta County). This information was collected in order to be sent to an entity involved in the Bataclan attacks in November 2015, in view of a terrorist attack. He carried out online propaganda for the Islamic State (Daesh), but also personally, by trying to convince others to fight in Syria for the IS. He posted on the web the attacks and executions (including decapitations) conducted by Daesh, declaring adherence to the terrorist organization, hotnews.ro reports.
Sources say he converted to Islamism when he was in 2015 imprisoned in France.
According to sources close to digi24.ro, the Islamic connections are in Belgium and France.
SRI spokesman Ovidiu Marincea told Digi24 that the suspect had observed and monitored a military objective on Romania’s territory, had repeatedly intended to go to Syria and tried to persuade others to join Daesh, in other words, he conducted terrorist propaganda.
DIICOT: “As early as November 2016, the suspect ‘Ibrahim’ has used and/or is currently using a number of personal accounts on a social network, through which he has posted and distributed photographs with the Daesh terrorist group logo, as well as recordings with Daesh attacks and executions.”
SRI: “The Romanian Intelligence Service has undertaken specific measures of informational documentation, based on a national security mandate, on a Romanian citizen aged 39, suspected of terrorism. In fact, the citizen came into the SRI attention in 2015, presenting specific indications of a person in an advanced stage of the self-radicalisation process. (…) Returned in Romania, the citizen conspicuously carried out detailed documentation on a military objective on the territory of Romania, with the declared purpose of contributing to the organization of a terrorist attack on that base. SRI has notified DIICOT of the illegal actions conducted by the citizen.”