Joe Duggan (Reporter)
FOUR suspected ISIS terrorists arrested in Mallorca today may have become radicalized in recent years, neighbours have suggested.
The suspected terror cell and a 44-year-old imam in Birmingham were seized during a joint Spanish and UK police dawn swoop.
The four local men were arrested in Inca, Ariany and Binissalem before being flown to Madrid in two police helicopters.
Neighbours of one of the suspects arrested in Ariany said he had ‘changed his appearance’ in recent years and wore a long Islamic gown ‘down to his feet’.
Another said he had ‘changed’ in the last two years and ‘didn’t speak to anyone’.
A police investigation into the alleged terror cell began in 2015 after officers found Islamist extremist videos posted online.
Birmingham counter-terrorist cops believe the imam may have radicalised the group after travelling to Mallorca and been their ‘spiritual leader’.
He was due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court before being extradited to Spain.
“Every time we saw him he seemed a normal person, very nice and who never created any problem,” a worker at the town hall told Diario de Mallorca about the Ariany suspect, who worked as a fisherman in Palma.
