Ten members of a jihadist cell linked to the Islamic State group (IS) who planned attacks in Barcelona and to film a decapitation were sentenced to 8-12 years in jail on Tuesday. According to the court, the group had been planning attacks “against institutions such as the police, banks and Jewish interests in Spain, or to join Daesh.” One of the members traveled to Syria in April 2014 and died in Iraq in May 2015. Five Moroccans, four Spaniards and a Brazilian, calling themselves the 'Islamic Fraternity, Group for preaching jihad' were handed between eight and 12 years in jail. A group leader suggested attacking the regional parliament

The court’s criminal division has sentenced three individuals to 12 years in prison for leading the terrorist association, while seven others have received eight-year sentences for participating in the group’s activities. In March 2015, the main leader of the cell, a Spaniard who had converted to Islam, proposed to kidnap and decapitate an "infidel" whom he had already identified, film the killing and then broadcast the video online before fleeing to Syria. He had previously proposed that the group "commit an attack against the Catalan parliament, which no one had objected to," according to the court ruling. "He also justified decapitations and talked about making handmade bombs to commit attacks." Police found documents calling for jihad at his home and books on European organisations such as the Basque separatist group ETA or Germany's far-left Red Army Faction, the ruling said. Members of the cell had also gone on a recce in Barcelona, the Catalonian capital, where they took photos of the train station, a luxury seaside hotel, a shopping mall and a police station. One member went to Syria in April 2014 and died in Fallujah in Iraq the following year. Three others tried to follow in his footsteps at the end of 2014 but were detained at the border between Bulgaria and Turkey. According to the interior ministry, close to a third of all arrests for "jihadist terrorism" in Spain were made in Catalonia last year.
Spain's Audiencia Nacional sentences ten Islamic extremists to between eight and twelve years in prison for a plot to launch attacks against Barcelona landmarks and behead a hostage on camera. The cell was convicted yesterday.