NEWS: 14 others were arrested during the operation for “crimes of resistance”.
The Spanish Home Office said in a statement that the police had arrested “twelve members of Coordinated Anarchist Groups (GAC)”, and that they will be charged with “belonging to a criminal organisation with terrorist ends”, sabotage and the placement of explosive and incendiary devices.
17 premises were searched in an operation across four regions beginning at 6 a.m. on Monday morning.
The Home Office said a further 14 people had been arrested for “crimes of resistance”.
The searches and arrests took place in Madrid, Barcelona (Catalonia), Palencia (Castilla y León) and Granada (Andalusia).
Six of the premises searches were carried out in “Social Squat Centres”.
The Home Office declined to comment further but said more information would be provided later on Monday.
A group that runs one of the social squat centres in Madrid posted a statement on its blog condemning the police raid as “another attack on the anarchist movement”.
“La Quimera de Lavapiés was besieged from 6:30 a.m. and, after destroying the door, searched for hours, [they] took material belonging to the social centre and the collectives that bring it to life. The police refused to show any kind of order or give any explanation for what was happening.”
Little is known about the Coordinated Anarchist Groups (GAC) but an online presentation statement posted in 2012 said the group’s aims were: “to strengthen and extend the anarchist movement”, “the destabilisation and collapse of the system”, “revolt and subversion of the established order” and “building anarchy”.
11 people from Spain, Uruguay, Italy and Austria were arrested in December in Barcelona and Madrid as part of Operation Pandora.
At the end of January, the investigating judge freed seven of the 11 on €3,000 bail, and linked them to the Coordinated Anarchist Groups, saying: “from the investigation it can be deduced that its members are the alleged authors of different attacks with home-made explosive devices across the country”.
A Catalan government statement dated January 29 labelled them “violent anarchists” responsible for attacks on banks in Italy, Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia, as well as the attacks on the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid and the Pilar Basilica in Zaragoza in 2013.
The statement also linked the GAC to the Italian Informal Anarchist Federation–International Revolutionary Front (Federazione Anarchica Informale-Fronte Rivoluzionario Internazionale), declared a terrorist organisation by the European Union in 2009.
The GAC published a 92-page e-book in 2013 titled “Against Democracy”.