MADRID, 1 (.)
The first data from the investigation into the letters with pyrotechnic material addressed, among others, to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, suggest that the shipments were made from Spain and that inside there is a “homemade” artifact that causes a “flashback” and not an explosion.
This was confirmed this Thursday in a press appearance by the Secretary of State for Security of the Ministry of the Interior, Rafael Pérez, reiterating on several occasions that it is in the preliminary phase of the investigation and that, therefore, one must be prudent when it points to authorship or if there may be more similar packages.
Until the appearance this Thursday at noon, there was evidence of five packages, although shortly after it was confirmed that the US Embassy in the capital had detected the sixth with “similar characteristics.”
BROWN CALLIGRAPHY AND ENVELOPES
According to Rafael Pérez, they are brown envelopes with a coincidence in various elements, including calligraphy. The first of them, as has been learned today, was located on November 24, addressed to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and was fired by the Moncloa security service.
A week later, yesterday, November 30, another letter arrived with pyrotechnic material inside a box that exploded, slightly injuring an employee of the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid in the hand. The envelope was addressed to the ambassador, Sergei Pohoreltsev. It was at that moment that the case was prosecuted, in charge of the National Court, centralizing all police investigations on this matter.
On the night of this Wednesday the 30th, the receipt of another letter was confirmed, sent to the director of the Instalaza company in Zaragoza, a company specialized in defense material and one of those that manufactures material –such as the C90 rocket launcher– which is then sent to Ukraine, a country that has been at war since the invasion of Russia.
This Thursday morning, December 1, it has been confirmed that at dawn the Torrejón air base in Madrid detected another envelope addressed to the director of the European Union Satellite Center. The Secretary of State for Security has stressed that he was the only one that had not been detonated, so he could be key in the investigation. The fifth confirmed was sent to the Ministry of Defense for the attention of the minister, Margarita Robles.
REINFORCEMENT OF SECURITY CONTROLS
The ‘number two’ of the Ministry of the Interior has for now rejected the possibility of raising the level of anti-terrorist alert, which has been at a level of 4 out of 5 for years. “I do not think that the facts are enough to convene the evaluation table of the anti-terrorism alert level,” he said.
In addition, it has revealed that the team of the President of the Government has contacted this Thursday with that of the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to inform him of these facts. “The important thing is that measures have been taken to neutralize the threat,” stressed the Ministry led by Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
Rafael Pérez recalled that the reinforcement of security controls has been ordered and also aimed at verifying the “traceability” of these letters with pyrotechnic material, including ordinary Postal services on which the focus was already placed in the last electoral campaign of the Community of Madrid for the letters with bullets sent to various political leaders.
The Ministry of the Interior has no record of envelopes with these characteristics sent to other European countries. Neither of cases that, with the aforementioned pyrotechnic material and the “deflagration mechanism”, have been previously sent to Spanish personalities and institutions.
