Terror imam’s ‘rights’ outrage
A radical Muslim cleric who masterminded the terror attack in Spain last week narrowly dodged deportation in 2014 after a drug-smuggling bust by claiming that the move would violate his rights.
Imam Abdelbaki Es Satty radicalized the young men accused of killing 15 people and wounding more than 120 during vehicle attacks in two Spanish cities, according to court testimony from one of the terrorist cell’s surviving members in Madrid onTuesday.
Es Satty, 45, spent four years in Spanish prison for smuggling hashish between his native Morocco and Spain in 2010, accord- ing to London’s Telegraph newspaper.
Upon his release in 2014, Es Satty was ordered to leave the country under Spanish immigration law, but he convinced a judge that his deportation would be an infringement of his international rights, the paper said.
He briefly worked as an imam at a Belgian mosque in 2016, but was fired because he refused to produce papers proving he had a clean criminal record, according to a Newsweek report.
Es Satty returned to Spain that year, teaching at two mosques in the town of Ripoll, where the suspected attackers lived.
He is believed to have been killed when a residence in the town of Alcanar that housed the 12man cell’s bomb-making operation exploded last Thursday.
Police say the terrorist group’s plan for a more lethal attack fell apart after the house, filled with explosive materials, was reduced to rubble and they resorted to using the vehicles to carry out their mayhem.