Court told of ‘plans for massive attack’

A SURVIVING member of the Barcelona cell has admitted they planned a much bigger attack.

Suspected bomb maker Mohamed Houli Chemlal was the first of the four men arrested to testify to a judge in the Spanish high court in Madrid yesterday.

Spain’s El Mundo newspaper reported that 21-year-old Houli Chemlal told the court Barcelona’s iconic Sagrada Familia cathedral was one of several targets for the “Mother of Satan” devices.

Sources said two suspects also confirmed local imam Abdelbaki Es Satty, 45, had been the plot’s mastermind.

He died when 130 gas canisters exploded, destroying the alleged bomb factory in Alcanar, south west of Barcelona, a day before Thursday’s van attack on the crowded Las Ramblas.

Houli Chemlal, injured in the Alcanar explosion, appeared at the closed court hearing in hospital pyjamas. The four are the only alleged members of the group still alive after Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, the driver of the Las Ramblas van, was killed by police on Monday.

Of the other alleged members arrested, 28-year-old Driss Oukabir has already denied involvement.

He says his brother Moussa, killed in Cambrils by police, stole his documents to hire the van.

The judge ordered both him and Houli Chemlal to be kept in custody on preliminary terror charges.

Salah al-karib, 34, accused of running an internet cafe in Ripoll used to transfer money, was held for a further 72 hours as inquiries go on.

Mohammed Aallaa,

27, the alleged owner of the Audi car used in the Cambrils attack, was freed by the judge. He ruled evidence on him was “not solid enough”.

The Las Ramblas attack left 13 dead and more than 130 injured. Driver Abouyaaqoub killed a 14th when he hijacked a car as he fled. And a 15th was killed in the attack in Cambrils.

Es Satty, a former imam in Ripoll, where most of the cell were from, won a fight to stay in Spain in 2014 after doing time for drug offences.

DEAD Abouyaaqoub