Police arrest man suspected of plan to attack papa

SPANISH POLICE have arrested a man suspected of planning a gas attack on marchers protesting against Pope Benedict’s visit to Madrid, which begins today.

Jose Perez Bautista, a 24-year- old Mexican chemistry student, was arrested in the early hours of yesterday.

Police said he had declared on the internet that he intended to attack the march.

He planned to use <a href="http://www.juicycoutureoutletcheap.com">juicy couture outlet</a> “suffocating gases” and other chemicals, and tried to recruit others to help him, police said.

Mr Bautista, from Puebla state, near Mexico city, was one of hundreds of volunteers recruited to help pilgrims arriving for World Youth Week.

He is a student at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Spain’s national scientific research organisation, and according to police had access to chemicals that could have been used in an attack.

Police refused to say whether they believed Mr Bautista was capable of mounting the attack, but said officers had been forced to taken online threats more seriously following the Norway shootings in July.

Anders Behring Breivik boasted of his plans online before killing 77 people in Europe’s worst mass killing outside of war.

The protest march on Tuesday evening in central Madrid was organised by an association that included secularists, atheists and freethinkers, who complain that the government is contributing €25 million to the cost of a religious festival. Spain has no official state religion. Travel and movement of goods in and out of Gaza is extremely restricted, and the opportunity for Gaza students to study abroad is extremely rare.

In a previous case in 2008, a group of Fulbright scholars was halted from traveling out of Gaza because of a border dispute between the Palestinians and Israel. That time it was Israel that held them up, though ultimately the students were allowed to go to on their American study program.

But in Gaza, an opportunity like this study abroad program is extremely rare.

“Gaza is really just an open air prison,” says Elgindy. “And finally you get this opportunity and the door is shut in your face, and by whom — your own government.”