A 39-year-old man from Arges county in Romania was detained on Thursday morning for allegedly being involved in terrorism-related activities.

The man, known as Ibrahim, is believed to have sent information about a military objective in Romania to a terrorist group from a European Union member state. The group was linked to those who claimed the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015.

Prosecutors from the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) carried out three home searches in Arges county on Thursday morning. They detained the 39-year-old suspect during these searches.

The man, who had changed his name to Ibrahim, has been using several social media accounts since November 2016 to distribute photos with the logo of DAESH terrorist group, as well as recordings of DAESH attacks and executions. His intention was to make them known and attract new followers capable of resorting this kind of activities, according to prosecutors.

In the spring of 2015, the man went near a military unit in Romania, carefully observing the access points, and gathering other important information about it.

“The suspect collected that data and information with the purpose of sending or making them available to a Salafist and pro-jihadist terrorist entity in a European Union member state, a group whose followers went to the Syrian-Iraqi region to participate in jihad, and which had links to those who claimed the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015,” reads the DIICOT statement.

The man also came to the attention of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) in 2015, as he was “showing specific indicators for a person at an advanced stage of the self-adaptation process,” SRI said in a statement.

“The citizen has adopted a radical form of Islam during his stay for several years in a European Union state, where he has developed ties with members of a jihadist group in that country. Back in Romania, he conspicuously carried out a detailed documentation on a military unit, with the declared purpose of contributing to organizing a terrorist attack on that base.”

SRI then notified DIICOT of the suspect's illegal actions.

Prison sentence for Romanian teenager over jihadist propaganda

Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com