Mastermind of Spanish Politician’s Assassination Plot Flees to Iran, Evading European Manhunt

The Dutch police are actively searching for Sami Bekal Bounouare, alias Pacho. This man, born in Palma in September 1997 and settled in Rotterdam with his family at the age of 13, is suspected of being the mastermind behind the attempted assassination of the Spanish politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras on November 9, 2023 in Madrid. This man had received a bullet to the face. This assassination attempt is interpreted as a retaliatory measure for his support for the Iranian opposition in exile.

According to the security forces, Pacho organized the trip of Meherz Ayari, the 37-year-old Franco-Tunisian hitman who allegedly shot at Quadras, to Spain in August 2023, and was arrested on June 19 last in the Netherlands. He is also said to have provided vehicles and money to the people involved in the plot and negotiated the purchase of the weapon used. Arrests were made after the assassination attempt, but Pacho fled first to Morocco, then to Qatar, Brazil, Colombia and finally to Turkey, from where he crossed the Iranian border, reports the Majorca Daily Bulletin. He is therefore believed to be currently in Iran. Europol had meanwhile promised a reward of 50,000 euros to anyone who would help locate and arrest him.

The man who has become an important figure in the Dutch underworld has a history of drug trafficking and is said to have close ties with the Italian mafia and the Mocro Maffia, a powerful network of criminals of Moroccan origin that has become one of the most feared in Europe. According to a Dutch judge, the 27-year-old man is behind an attempted assassination against an Iranian activist last June in Haarlem. He is involved in the murder of Wisam Al-Albassi in Capelle aan den IJssel in 2021. At that time, he was no longer in Spain.