Spain attack suspects held in court
Four members of a terror cell detained for questioning
MADRID: As the dust settled over five days of angst in Spain after deadly terror attacks, the four remaining alleged members of a terror cell that carried out the carnage arrived in a Madrid court for questioning.
Spanish police shot dead Barcelona terror suspect Younes Abouyaaqoub on Monday in a dramatic end to a massive manhunt for the Moroccan national, who shouted “God is greatest” when he was killed.
The Moroccan was the last on-the-run member of a 12-man cell suspected of plotting last week’s vehicle attacks in Barcelona and the seaside resort of Cambrils that left 15 dead and more than 100 injured.
Four men were detained, and the rest were killed, either by police or in an explosion believed to have been accidentally detonated by the suspects themselves in their bomb factory in the seaside town of Alcanar.
Among those killed in the explosion was a Moroccan imam at the heart of the cell, Abdelbaki Es Satty, Catalan police chief Josep Lluis Trapero confirmed.
Under heavy security yesterday, police vans carrying the suspects entered the National Court, which deals with terrorism cases, where a judge will decide what – if any – charges to press against the four men who allegedly formed part of the cell.
These include Driss Oukabir, 27, the older brother of Moussa who was killed by police in Cambrils on Friday morning after going on a car rampage with four others.
Mohamed Aallaa, Mohamed Houli Chemlal, who was injured in the explosion in Alcanar, and Salh El Karib were also in court.
Police gave their ages as 21, 28 and 34 but did not say who was what age.
Four days after the van rampage on the tourist-packed Las Ramblas boulevard, police on Monday gunned down the 22-year-old Abouyaaqoub in the village about 60km west of Barcelona, after receiving multiple tip-offs.
In Abouyaaqoub’s hometown Ripoll, where many of the suspects grew up or lived, Moroccan factory worker Hassan Azzidi said he was “happy and sad all at once” that the suspect had been gunned down.
“This had to end because we’re living as if in a war, but at the same time someone brainwashed such a young boy,” he said.
In total, 15 people died in the attacks including Pau Perez, a 34-year-old man found stabbed to death outside Barcelona on Friday after Abouyaaqoub hijacked his car to make a getaway.
Investigators seeking to unravel the terror cell had homed in on the small border town of Ripoll at the foot of the Pyrenees mountains in northeastern Spain.
Satty, in his 40s, came under scrutiny as he is believed to have radicalised youths in Ripoll.
Police said the imam had spent time in prison and had once been in contact with a suspect wanted on terrorism charges but was never himself charged with terror-related incidents.