Imam ‘planned to blow himself up’
TERROR: An extremist cell was preparing bombs for an imam who planned to blow himself up at a Barcelona monument, a key suspect in the attacks that killed 15 people in north-eastern Spain told a judge.
A JUDGE has ordered two of the four surviving suspects in last week’s extremist attacks in Spain to be held without bail, another detained for 72 more hours and one freed.
Earlier, the judge had heard testimony that an extremist cell was preparing bombs for an imam who planned to blow himself up at a Barcelona monument, a key suspect in the attacks that killed 15 people in north-eastern Spain, according to a judicial official at Spain’s National Court in Madrid yesterday.
Judge Fernando Andreu issued his orders after hearing the four answer questions about the vehicle attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils.
Mr Andreu said there was enough evidence to hold 21-yearold Mohamed Houli Chemlal and 28-year-old Driss Oukabir on preliminary charges of causing homicides and injuries of a terrorist nature and of belonging to a terror organisation.
The judge said Houli Chemlal was also held for dealing with explosives.
Sahl El Karib, the owner of a cybercafe in Ripoll, the Pyrenees hometown to most of the members of the cell, will remain in custody for at least 72 more hours while police inquiries continue.
The judged ruled the evidence to keep holding suspect Mohamed Aalla was “not solid enough”.
The court official said Houli Chemlal and suspect Driss Oukabir, 28, identified the imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty, as the ideologist of the cell.
Aalla and El Karib had denied being part of the cell.
Eight members of the cell have either been killed by police – five were shot dead on Friday and one on Monday after a manhunt.
Es Satty and another man blew themselves up by accident while preparing explosives in a house in the coastal town of Alcanar, south of Barcelona.
Es Satty preached in a mosque in the north-eastern town of Ripoll, home to most of the 12 suspected cell members.
Police have identified his remains amid the rubble of the August 16 explosion that destroyed the house in Alcanar. Police found more than 100 tanks of butane gas and materials to make TATP, an explosive frequently used by Islamic State militants.
IS has claimed responsibility for both attacks on pedestrians – one on Thursday by a van that mowed down people on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas promenade and another early on Friday in Cambrils. The attacks and a bloody getaway in which a man was stabbed to death left 15 dead and more than 120 wounded.
Chemlal, the only survivor of the Alcanar blast, told the court he is alive because he was on the ground floor.
He testified from a wheelchair and has been in hospital under guard since his arrest on Thursday.
The second suspect interrogated, Oukabir, testified that he did rent the vans used in the attacks on pedestrians but thought they were going to be used for a house move. His brother Moussa was one of the five radicals shot dead on Friday by police in Cambrils.
The third suspect, Aalla, said an Audi A3 used in last week’s attack in Cambrils was registered under his name but used by another sibling.
Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, was shot dead on Monday after a massive manhunt and is believed to have driven the van through Barcelona’s crowded Las Ramblas promenade.
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