Arrested 10 Libya-Backed Terrorists, Spain Reports

Spanish police have arrested 10 members of a terrorist group that received orders from Libyan diplomats and planned to attack U.S. businesses and American citizens in Spain, the Interior Ministry said Saturday.

The detainees--three Lebanese, four Spaniards, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Portuguese--belonged to an anti-Zionist group called “The Call of Jesus Christ,” the ministry said in a statement.

Two group members who were arrested Friday told authorities that the orders and financing for the attacks were to be provided by Libyan diplomats, the ministry said.

An Interior Ministry spokesman told a reporter that there were no indications that a high-ranking Libyan diplomat who left the country Saturday had any links to the terrorist group. Saad Ismail, the head of the Libyan Embassy in Madrid, was expelled for allegedly meeting with a right-wing Spanish officer accused of plotting against the Spanish government. Leaving with him was Ramadan Ruhoim, a commercial attache expelled last month. The government cut short an extension of Ruhoim’s deadline to leave the country.

Seized With Explosives

The ministry statement said Victor del Cerro of Spain and Manuel Romano da Cruz of Portugal were arrested Friday in downtown Madrid with nine pounds of explosives and told authorities that they planned to blow up the Bank of America office.

The Spanish government said the two men also told authorities that they took part in the April 10 bombing of the Air France office in Lisbon, an attack that caused minor damage and no injuries. An anonymous caller told the official Portuguese news agency ANOP that the French terrorist group Direct Action is responsible.

According to the Interior Ministry, the two suspects said they carried out the attack against the Air France office following instructions from members of The Call of Jesus Christ. They were told that they would receive $70,000 from Libyan diplomats, the ministry said.

Reporting the subsequent arrest of the eight other suspects, the statement identified them as Faisal Hanna Joudi of Lebanon, who allegedly headed the group in Spain; Danny Hanna Joudi and Freddy Hanna Joudi of Lebanon; Rabah abu Kamis of Jordan; Faried Jazan of Syria, and Pedro Vargas Mendoza, Calixto Bravatas Flores and Felicisimo Barroso Rodriguez of Spain.

Authorities also seized large numbers of documents from the suspects, the statement said.

The detainees were charged with participating in terrorist activities.

The ministry said The Call of Jesus Christ was founded by Hanna Elias Joudi. The statement said that the group first surfaced in Lebanon in 1978 and that its members have claimed to be fighting for the freedom of Palestinians from Zionist domination.

According to the government statement, the group has contacts with South American radicals, including the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance. This organization is an extreme right-wing terrorist group most active in the early 1970s.

The ministry also said the group claimed to have links with the Greek Catholic Church in the Middle East, but that was vigorously disputed by church sources in Beirut.

Spanish officials said it is possible that some of the suspects are members of the church, which is an Eastern Catholic rite also known as the Melchite church, but they noted that the church’s leader, Patriarch Maximus V, is an outspoken foe of all forms of violence.