Spain warned Belgians about attack cell leader
MADRID — Spanish authorities shared information with Belgium more than a year ago about the alleged cell leader in last week’s Spain attacks, but they didn’t have any details at the time to indicate he was dangerous, officials said Thursday.
Abdelbaki Es Satty, an imam who is blamed for recruiting young Muslims in a Catalan town to commit attacks in Barcelona, had served a four-year prison term for drug trafficking in 2012 and had been questioned as early as 2006 in a national police operation against jihadism.
Request for info in 2016
But the Catalan police officer who answered an informal request of information from Belgium in early 2016 didn’t have the complete records on Es Satty, according to the remarks by high ranking police and government officials in Catalonia and interviews conducted by the Associated Press.
The chief of the Interior department in the Catalan regional government, Joaquim Forn, acknowledged Thursday that Belgian police in Vilvoorde made an informal request for information on the imam in 2016, when Es Satty spent three months in the city known for Islamic State group recruiting.
Forn said police gave their Belgian counterparts what they had but at no point had anyone told them Es Satty had been investigated or was dangerous. The exchange was described by another Catalan official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an informal conversation between two police officers.
Es Satty was one of two suspects that died in a blast at a house in Alcanar on Aug. 16 which disrupted the cell’s plan to set off bombs in Barcelona.
Following the explosion, other members of the cell carried out attacks with vehicles and knives as weapons on Aug. 17-18 that left 15 dead and more than 120 injured.
Police confirmed on Thursday the identity of the second body found in the house used as an explosives workshop as that of Youssef Aalla. One suspect survived the blast and has been jailed.
A National Court judge also released Salh El Karib, one of the four suspects arrested in the wake of the attacks, because of a lack of evidence that he was part of the plot.
Others releeased
El Karib lived in Ripoll, the town where the extremist cell was allegedly formed. He used his credit card to purchase plane tickets for another suspect in the case, according to court documents released Thursday. He was reimbursed in cash and was paid an additional 5 euros ($6), the documents said.
The judge saw insufficient evidence to keep him in police custody and ordered his release requiring him to stay in Spain and show up in court once a week while the investigation is open.
Judge Fernando Andreu also freed under similar restrictions another of the suspects Tuesday, once again for lacking proof of his involvement, and sent to jail the other two people arrested after hearing their testimony.
Eight more people connected to the attacks are dead, six of them shot by police.