The former president of the Catalan PP and founder of Vox Alejo Vidal-Quadras was shot in the face around 1:30 p.m. today on Núñez de Balboa street in Madrid. He has been taken consciously to the Gregorio Marañón hospital and there is no fear for his life, according to the emergency services. The police are now looking for two people who fled on a motorcycle after shooting the former MEP, who from the hospital has admitted to the police that the attack may be related to his contacts with the opposition to the Iranian regime.
The main hypothesis with which the police are working - the homicide group of the Madrid Police Headquarters has taken charge of the investigation -, without ruling out other possibilities, is that it is a settling of accounts perpetrated by hitmen linked to the Iranian regime.
The events occurred in the vicinity of Vidal-Quadras' home in Madrid, who had left the gym at mass minutes before being attacked. According to initial investigations, two people traveling on a large black motorcycle participated in the attack. One of them approached the politician, whom he shot at point-blank range with small caliber bullets from a couple of meters away. The other was waiting for him on the black Yamaha as a pilot. After the shot, the aggressor ran to the motorcycle with which they fled at high speed from the scene.
In this regard, the police are trying to determine if the discovery of a motorcycle with similar characteristics found burned in Fuenlabrada is related to the events.
The man who was president of the Popular Party of Catalonia between 1991 and 1996 and one of the founders of Vox has been transferred by the conscious Samur to the hospital, according to Madrid Emergency sources.
The National Police has taken charge of the investigation and is giving priority to the arrest of the gunman and his companion. According to investigation sources cited by Efe, the attack was carried out with a 9 millimeter Parabellum pistol.
A possible avenue of investigation, some sources indicate, is the connection with the Iranian opposition of Vidal-Quadras, who has always been in favor of returning democracy to Iran and participated, for example, on February 8, 2019 in Paris, in the anniversary of the overthrow of the shah's monarchy by Ayatollah Khomeini. In that demonstration, he asked for the support of the European Union, of whose Parliament he himself had been vice president, to the opponents of the theocratic regime and denounced the terrorist acts that the Islamic Republic, through the murder of opponents, sponsored outside its borders to maintain itself. in the power.
Alejo Vidal-Quadras is one of those who were on the Iranian regime's list as terrorists with eight or nine MEPs among them Javier Zarzalejos and Hermann Tertsch, according to a source from the European Parliament.
The General Information Commissioner's Office, where experts in the fight against terrorism work, is not part of the investigation. Nor has the National Court, competent to take on terrorism cases, been responsible for coordinating the proceedings.
People around the politician asked not to jump to conclusions about the motivations for the attack, after social media began to suggest that there was a political motivation behind the attack. And shortly before being shot, Vidal-Quadras tweeted against the amnesty: “The infamous pact between Sánchez and Puigdemont that crushes the rule of law in Spain and ends the separation of powers has already been agreed upon. Our Nation will thus cease to be a liberal democracy and become a totalitarian tyranny. We Spaniards will not allow it.”
Alejo Vidal-Quadras was president of the PP of Catalonia from 1991 to 1996 and was removed by the national leadership of the party after the Majestic Pact with CiU. His destiny then was the European Parliament, where he was elected as a European parliamentarian in the period between 1999 and 2014, becoming vice president of the European Parliament.
However, in January 2014 he announced that he was leaving the PP, given that he maintained a critical stance towards the party's former president Mariano Rajoy, and began joining Vox, where he held the provisional presidency and was head of the list for the European elections. of that year, without obtaining representation. In 2015 he also left the team directed by Santiago Abascal.
The acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has sent a message of "solidarity and wishes for a speedy recovery" to Vidal-Quadras. "We trust that the investigation can clarify the facts as soon as possible and those responsible will be arrested," Sánchez added in a message on the 'X' social network.
Likewise, the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has condemned the shooting and has demanded a "prompt investigation" to clarify what happened and find the culprits. "Of course, we sympathize with his family and we hope that Alejo Vidal-Quadras maintains his life," he stated in his appearance without questions at the PP headquarters to assess the agreement between PSOE and Junts for the investiture. .
For his part, the president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, declared himself "shocked and affected" by the attack this Thursday and has asked that the culprits be "caught as soon as possible and that no one ever grant them amnesty."
"Given the information about the attack suffered by former deputy Aleix Vidal-Quadras, he expressed his total solidarity with the wish for a speedy recovery," said the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès. "We will be attentive to the news about his condition. of health," the president pointed out.
Reactions have also come even from abroad. This is the case, for example, of the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, who has shown her shock at this "horrible news" and has wished a quick recovery to her former vice president of the European Parliament.
The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has also spoken out, expressing her closeness and that of the Government to Alejo Vidal-Quadras and his family for the "cowardly attack." Meloni received the reassuring news about Vidal-Quadras' condition with relief, whom she wished a speedy and full recovery.
