Brazil charges 11 people with trying to set up Islamic State cell
BRASILIA - Brazilian federal prosecutors have charged 11 people with planning to establish an Islamic State cell in Brazil and trying to recruit jihadists to send to Syria, according to a court filing seen by Reuters on Thursday.
Police tracked the alleged Islamic State militants through their social media messages after Spain's Guardia Civil provided telephone numbers found on a Brazilian arrested in Spain for belonging to a jihadist group there.
In one WhatsApp chat group, some of the Brazilian suspects discussed plans to copy last year's London Bridge attack during Carnival in Rio de Janeiro or Salvador to kill as many people as possible, the document said.
Two of the Brazilians are being held in a maximum-security prison and five others, arrested since October, were freed pending trial, said a spokesman for the prosecutors office for the state of Goias in central Brazil that filed the charges.
