The peasant killer arrested in France was convicted of jihadism and wore an electronic bracelet.

BarcelonaFrench police have arrested a man in Besiers, in the Occitanie region, as the alleged perpetrator of the murder of three farmers, one of them Catalan, which took place between November 2023 and January 2024, according to several French media outlets and confirmed by ARA. The detainee was previously convicted of terrorism, according to police sources. His name is Allal El Mourabit Ahmmar, he was on probation and wore a telematic bracelet. At the end of 2023, however, he broke away and began his escape, which resulted in the three crimes.

The events date back to the end of 2023, when three farmers were murdered in a short period of time: two in Navarre and one in Lleida. The motivation is still not entirely clear, although police sources do not classify the crimes as terrorist attacks, but rather as the desire of the detainee to continue his escape. Specifically, on November 22, he attacked a farmer in Tudela, Navarre. A month later, another farmer was found dead a few kilometers away, in Ribaforada. The last victim was Catalan: he was 84 years old and on January 5, 2024, was working on his land in Vilanova de la Barca, Lleida, when the arrested man allegedly beat him to death with a blunt object and stole his car to escape.

In the previous crime, the detainee allegedly also stole the victim's car. His escape was in the direction of Northern Catalonia, and the Spanish authorities issued an arrest warrant, which French police were able to execute on Tuesday. The location of the man's cell phone would have been key to finding him. Thus, the investigation was led by the National Police, the Civil Guard, and the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), who from the outset detected that the three crimes could be linked. In fact, they found the same DNA at the scene of all three crimes, which ended up belonging to the arrested man. According to French media reports, the man's arrest was complicated because he resisted. During the arrest, a Taser gun was used, and two officers were slightly injured.

"Terrorism against the enemy is the duty of every Muslim."

ARA has had access to the 2018 ruling that condemned Allal El Mourabit to three years in prison for glorifying terrorism. "Since 2014, he has supported the propaganda strategy of the terrorist organization Daeix, encouraging jihad against Western countries," the National Court ruling states. The 22-page document reviews all of the detainee's Facebook posts praising radical Islamic ideology. "Yes, terrorism against the enemy is the duty of every Muslim," he wrote. However, it doesn't end there: the ruling states that El Mourabit traveled to Turkey twice with the intention of crossing the border into Syria and fighting for it as a fighter for the Islamic State.

After his release from prison, El Mourabit continued to preach terrorist rhetoric on social media. In fact, he opened a YouTube channel where he analyzed the best submachine guns and missiles for combat, and where he also shared war images from the Middle East and speeches by radical Islamic leaders. Jihadist chants were also found on his computer with lyrics like these: "Mama, my faith has led me to jihad and to struggle, I will go to eternity without a doubt, death does not frighten me, and my desire is martyrdom." However, this second sentence concluded that it had not been proven that the detainee incited terrorist acts, and he was ultimately acquitted. Be that as it may, according to police sources, he had surveillance measures such as his electronic bracelet, which he allegedly ended up breaking.