The folly of using an onboard GPS system appears to have led PJ police to a suspected Islamic terrorist, en-route from Portugal to France.
As reports today explain, the man – described only as someone from the Maghreb (northeastern region of Africa) – stole a LandRover jeep from Lisbon, and would quite possibly have “gotten away with it” had he not activated the vehicle’s GPS system.
In doing so, the GPS coordinates pinged through to the car’s owner, and he in turn was able to advise police on its route.
A road block on the A1 motorway near Abrantes caught the “magrebino” red-handed.
But what appeared to be a simple case of carjacking then turned sinister.
Says tabloid Correio da Manhã, the arrested man refused to give the authorities any details beyond his name.
He gave no “details of his life”: what he was doing in Portugal, why he was going to Paris – indeed what he was doing in Europe at all.
This prompted “the worst of suspicions” which then increased as PJ counter-terrorism police tried to track the man’s past movements.
He used to live in Brussels, says the paper, which is a known haunt of “radical islamists connected to the terrorism of Daesh”.
Brussels is also a city that has seen Daesh operatives leave in order to mount attacks in Paris.
When the “magrebino” was in Brussels, he made Western Union money transfers to Portugal, indicating his address as Lisbon’s Tivoli Hotel “which was false”, says CM.
“The suspect’s trail through Europe is now being minutely studied by the PJ, in articulation with international counterparts”, the paper adds.
And while all that is unfolding, the “magrebino” is being kept in the capital’s high-security Monsanto jail.
CM adds that also confined to Monsanto is Moroccan Abdessalam Tazi who “arrived in Lisbon as a refugee and tried to recruit other men to the Daesh cause” (click here).
