This Tuesday, Code 10, the event program presented by Nacho Abad and David Aleman on Cuatro, featured a revealing testimony on set. It is about a woman, Raquel Alonso, who was married to a jihadist for twenty years without knowing it until he was arrested.
Although her husband was an “absolutely normal person”, integrated into our society, his radicalization to jihadism and his integration into a terrorist cell occurred in just one month. Hence no one, not even her, realized what was happening. Of course, some time later she did begin to notice those subtle changes in her husband's behavior.
“He was not radicalized. He was an absolutely normal person, integrated into Spanish society. His radicalization was express. More or less in a month. He joined a terrorist cell,” Raquel Raquel told Code 10. During her story, the guest also explained how that cell worked and what the hierarchy was.
“The leader seemed the poorest. He generated that empathetic role for whoever they are going to capture. What they did was recruit followers to send them to the conflict zones in the ranks of Daesh. At the trial, the police did declare that they were prepared to commit an attack in Spain,” said Raquel.
Both the presenters and the collaborators showed their surprise at her husband's rapid radicalization, to which the woman made it clear that her family was fully integrated: "I had a fully structured family and at that time the only thing we knew about jihadist attacks They were those of 11M. “We were not familiar with that concept of jihadism.”
However, there were certain changes, although subtle, that she began to notice in her husband, but which indicated his jihadist radicalization:
“For example, we couldn't have alcohol at home because it is against religion; The children had to learn Arabic at the mosque, they were not happy with a teacher at home... These men became radicalized at the mosque (...) Change their profile. He was a fun, empathetic person and those profiles are isolated. If at a certain moment they have to commit an attack, at that moment they cannot have a heart.”
On the other hand, Raquel also specified how with the recruitment of her ex-husband, she became a subordinate woman. She “she changed her reaction to everything. She suddenly became a cruel, silent, non-communicative, aggressive person... even with children. “She was trying to subdue them,” she noted.
In fact, “his goal was to go to Syria. A month before his arrest I also began to detect a police chase. When I went to report it, they told me that my husband was subject to an investigation.” After the arrest of her husband, Raquel continues to suffer the consequences: she has suffered two attacks in the name of Allah and, currently, she is under constant anonymous threats.
