MADRID – A Spanish official says a terror suspect who allegedly helped finance an al-Qaida-linked cell responsible for several attacks in Morocco that killed nearly three dozen people in 2003 has been arrested in Belgium.
An Interior Ministry official says Abdelkader Ayachine, an Algerian, sent money to several terrorists who carried out a wave of bombings in Casablanca that killed 33 people, three of whom were Spaniards. The official spoke on customary condition of anonymity.
The official said Thursday that Ayachine was also the leader of a terror cell in northern Spain that was broken up in 2007. He fled to Belgium in 2011, and an arrest warrant was then issued.
It was not immediately clear when Ayachine would be extradited from Belgium.