A man arrested in Barakaldo (Bizkaia) for attacking the PNV candidate, Imanol Pradales, with pepper spray

The Ertzaintza arrested this afternoon in Barakaldo (Bizkaia) a 49-year-old individual who attacked the candidate for lehendakari of the PNV, Imanol Pradales, with pepper spray, who had to be taken to the Cruces hospital to clean his eyes, according to The Basque Department of Security has reported.

Minutes before seven thirty this afternoon, the PNV candidate for Lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, was attacked by an unknown person who threw pepper spray in his face, when he was in public, after participating in an event. election campaign in Barakaldo.

Both Imanol Pradales and a person accompanying him, who was also affected in this attack, have been evacuated to the Cruces hospital. The perpetrator of these events, a 49-year-old man, has been arrested at the same place as the incident for a crime of injuries.

This is what the president of the EBB of the PNV, Andoni Ortuzar, told at the beginning of his speech at the Barakaldo electoral event, as soon as he left the Pradales site.

As Ortuzar explained, when the lehendakari candidate "was leaving to prepare for the ETB debate, a person approached him and sprayed him with pepper spray and they had to take him to Cruces to clean his eyes."

"We don't know what it is, but in any case, I think that this type of behavior, this type of events, has to lead us as a society to reflect on whether all of this that we are experiencing, of stretching, of tension, of creating division , to create tension, is the way for a society like the Basque one. Of course, in the opinion of the PNV, no, that is not our way," he stated.