2024-02-23T18:23:42+00:00
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/ Former Spanish right-wing politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras, who survived an assassination attempt in early November, has once again accused the Iranian regime of being behind the attack on him, in his first public appearance since it occurred.
“I have no doubt that it is the Iranian regime,” said the 78-year-old former vice-president of the European Parliament, who has always been close to Iranian opposition movements. “Tehran has a long tradition and a long record of extraterritorial terrorist activities,” against “dissidents and against foreigners who support them,” Quadras told AFP.
Alejo Vidal-Quadras had previously implicated Iran in a police hearing after the attack. The former politician described it as a “miracle” that he survived the attack, which took place outside his home in Madrid on November 9, as he was returning from a walk.
“When I got to the sidewalk in front of my house, I heard a voice behind me saying ‘Hello, mister.’ I moved my head, which made the shot that was supposed to be fatal, not so,” he said. The bullet entered one side of his jaw and exited the other.
“The bullet thundered through my head, puncturing my eardrum. I started bleeding and it was left there like a puddle on the ground,” he added.
He confirmed that the quick intervention of a passerby saved his life by stopping the bleeding with a piece of clothing. Since then, he has suffered from repercussions, including “paralysis of the facial muscles.”
Vidal-Quadras led the Popular Party (right) in Catalonia in the 1990s, then served as a member of the European Parliament and vice-president of the European Parliament between 1999 and 2014, before co-founding the far-right Vox party, which he left shortly after its creation.
Four people have been arrested in the investigation into the attempted assassination of Vidal Cuadras, but the suspect in the shooting is still at large. He is a Frenchman of Tunisian origin who has previously been sentenced in France, according to Agence France-Presse.