Suspect allegedly involved in shooting of Spain Vox party co-founder is arrested in Colombia

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a former vice-president of the European parliament and co-founder of Spain’s Vox party, was shot in the head in Madrid last year

Colombian police say they have arrested a Venezuelan suspected of involvement in the alleged attempted assassination in Madrid last year of a co-founder of Spain’s far-right Vox party.

Greg Oliver Higuera Marcano was wanted in connection with last year’s shooting of Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a former leader of Spain’s main rightwing political party in Catalonia who went on to co-found Vox, and is a former vice-president of the European parliament.

The 78-year-old survived being shot in the head in November last year.

Colombian police said in a statement that according to Spanish investigations, the Venezuelan had allegedly “participated logistically in the attack on Vidal-Quadras”.

Higuera was “detected” by immigration officials on Tuesday as he “intended to enter Colombia via the Simón Bolívar international bridge” on the border with Venezuela, police said.

A “coordination process” was now under way for Higuera to be presented to a court in Spain, the police statement said.

Vidal-Quadras was leader of the conservative PP party in the north-eastern Catalonia region in the 1990s. He went on to be an MEP and then was among the founders of Vox, which he left shortly after its creation.

Vidal-Quadras has previously accused the Iranian regime of being behind the assassination attempt. In October 2022, Vidal-Quadras was included in an Iranian sanctions list in retaliation for EU sanctions imposed on the country after the death in custody of a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini.

A Paris-based Iranian opposition group, the Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has previously described Vidal-Quadras as a staunch ally and blamed the Iranian government for the attack.

In November last year, Spain announced the arrest of three suspects in the “attempted terrorist assassination” of Vidal-Quadras.

The suspected gunman, described by Spanish authorities as a Frenchman of Tunisian origins, has not been caught.

With Agence France-Presse

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaK%2Bfp7mle5FpaW1nmpa7cH2XaJilnZqkere1w5qjZqmllrGzrdJmqqmZmaN6t7vXZqeaqqSuerS0zqiroqaXYq6tuMSgnJ1lo6rAsbHCrWSaqqKawLV5wqijqKWSnq5us9GenmannJ7Dpr6MoaCgrZWnrg%3D%3D