Vidal-Quadras reappears after his attack: "I heard a voice and moved my head and the shot that was going to be fatal was not miraculously"

Alvaro Carvajal Madrid

Madrid

Updated Friday, February 23, 2024-13:36

• Investigation Attempted assassination of Vidal-Quadras: Iranian suspicion, a "professional" gunman and a twist of the neck that could have saved his life

• Investigation The Police investigate death threats against Alejo Vidal-Quadras in the weeks before the attack

The strong presence of police and bodyguards and the scrupulous security measures reflected the magnitude of the threat.

Alejo Vidal-Quadras

reappeared for the first time in public this Friday in Madrid after the attack he suffered on November 9, when

a hitman shot him in the face in a terrorist act

that is suspected to have been ordered by Iran, given the connections of the Former Catalan politician from PP and Vox with the dissidents of that country.

With a voice that is more "hoarse" than usual as a result of the reconstruction surgery on his face after the shot and "certain paralysis" that he still suffers from in his facial muscles, the former vice president of the European

Parliament

spoke at a press conference in the APM headquarters his version of the events, the context of the attack and his "conviction" that the "tyrannical" regime of Iran is behind it, which is the hypothesis with which the case is investigated judicially and police and that is under summary secrecy.

The most shocking moment of his appearance was when Vidal-Quadras reconstructed what the attack was like.

That morning of November 9, 2023, he was returning home to Madrid after walking through El Retiro when next to his doorway he heard a voice "behind" him and "very close" which, due to his reaction, led him to make a gesture. spontaneous that saved his life.

"Hello sir," said that voice.

"I made a movement of my head that meant that the shot that was going to be fatal was not. By a miracle. When I heard the voice I made a movement that tilted my head and the shot that is always to the neck or head entered through the jaw , he descended and left," he explained.

"I noticed extreme daze. The detonation sounded like thunder next to my head and I started to bleed," he continued with his story.

"I immediately thought: the Iranian regime. It was automatic," she said.

"I saw that I was thinking and that I wasn't fainting and I thought, 'You're alive.'"

However, the appearance of a "gentleman" at that moment was decisive in ensuring that he remained alive and could endure until the arrival of the emergency services.

That man took off his tracksuit and placed the garment on the two holes that were bleeding "abundantly."

"Thanks to that man I didn't bleed to death," he noted.

It was when the ambulance arrived that Vidal-Quadras was able to put the Police behind the Iranian trail.

Since he couldn't speak, he picked up his mobile phone and wrote the word "Iran."

From there, he was hospitalized for 16 days, asleep and intubated for four.

"When I woke up I thought it was the same day and four days had passed."

Vidal-Quadras has "no doubt" that Iran is the culprit, although to cover up its tracks it has hired professional criminals to carry out the murder.

Because, as he explained, it has happened on other occasions to make it as difficult as possible to relate to him.

"I have very actively supported the National Council of Resistance of Iran that opposes the theocratic dictatorship. I have supported them publicly and enthusiastically," he said.

The former vice president of the European Parliament between 1999 and 2014 recalled that he became "disturbed" when he appeared on a "black list of enemies in the West" that Iran published in 2022. "When I saw this I said: oh, oh, oh."

Well, he appeared in first place, as his "public enemy number one", in a list of names of people and organizations where there were other Spanish politicians and associations like the one he founded in 2008 to support the Iranian resistance.

"I was worried when I saw the black list headed by me. It caused me some uneasiness but I thought 'they won't dare', it is absurd that they would kill a vice president of the European Parliament. But I was wrong," he said.

And he added that this concern did not escalate to the point of being scared and that, therefore, he continued with his "normal life" and without any type of protection.

Vidal-Quadras is clear that the intention of his assassination was to "remove a very annoying enemy," as well as to scare other people who, like him, maintain relations with the Iranian opposition.

"So that you can hear me: they have not achieved their objective, miraculously I have saved my life and I plan to continue this fight for human rights in Iran with more enthusiasm and energy than I have had until now, which has been a lot," he remarked in a message expressly addressed to the ayatollah regime.

Vidal-Quadras's life, already marked forever by this attack, has changed in that he now lives protected by the National Police and bodyguards.

That is why he does not fear that the masterminds of the attack could send someone else to assassinate him again.

"If they tried it again it would not be easy," he noted, "it would be self-accusation and that would have diplomatic and economic consequences that would have very damaging consequences for the regime. The probability that they could try it seems very small to me."

As the case is under summary secrecy in the National Court, it did not provide new details about the detainees or the escaped Franco-Tunisian hitman who is considered the material author of the attack.

He did explain that in its "criminal" trajectory, years ago Iran went from carrying out assassinations of opponents abroad with its own agents to subcontracting that task to mafia or drug trafficking groups to make it difficult for the police to make connections.

A modus operandi that fits his case and that he trusts that the Spanish Justice system can prove.

He, of course, is completely convinced.

For this reason, he asked the European Union to take a "firm" position with the ayatollah regime, since its embassies, he said, are probably intelligence centers where "planning of terrorist actions" is carried out.

Thus, he asked the EU to "change policy" with this country because "appeasement and pact do not work."

Well, they continue with their "terrible internal repression" and their "terrorist" activities in Iraq, Syria, Yemen or with groups like Hezbollah or Hamas.

"We must expel these false diplomats who are planning hostile actions towards Europe, intensifying sanctions and supporting the opposition and the people of Iran," he concluded.

Asked if he knows if other Spaniards on the 2008 "black list" now have protection, Vidal-Quadras said he did not know.

He does know that in the United Kingdom this escort has been applied to a former Scottish MEP but not in Portugal with another colleague who is on the list.