The National Police arrested four people last Saturday accused of wanting to boycott the Vuelta España. According to a note released this Tuesday, those arrested intended to spill 400 liters of oil on the asphalt as the peloton passed by during the first stage between the towns of Suria and Arinsal. In some images provided by the Police itself, it can be seen how two drums had been hidden in a wooded area near a highway bridge to which a hose had been attached with which they intended to pour the liquid. The entire mechanism was covered with branches and leaves from the forest.
The agents surprised the detainees in a wooded area at the moment in which they were preparing to activate the mechanism that would spill "hundreds of liters" as the cycling tour passed, the statement said. The installation had a "solenoid valve and a timer", according to the investigators. Those arrested adopted "numerous security measures to avoid detection and surveillance," adds the Police. At the time of their arrest, none of them had a mobile phone on them and they had used secondary roads to get to the point where they had installed the mechanism.
The detainees passed yesterday at the disposal of the duty court of Solsona and were released. They are attributed the crimes of belonging to a criminal group, public disorder, against road safety and against the environment. The operation on Saturday included searching the homes of the suspects in several towns in the Osona region. The agents took computers and computer equipment that will be analyzed by the investigators.
After the arrests, spokespersons for the CDR issued a message in which they stated that just before the start of the "Spanish Tour" the "repressive State" had carried out "preventive" arrests typical of Francoism. Solidarity Alert and CDR Catalonia called a rally to protest the arrests. "Four arrests to stop the protests against the colonial Tour, and four searches at night to intimidate the independence movement, like six years ago with the Judas operation," they denounced from their Twitter account.
