Spain: Police raid home of suspect in church machete attacks

ALGECIRAS, Spain (AP) — Spanish police on Thursday raided the home of a Moroccan man held over the machete attacks at two Catholic churches that left a church officer dead and a priest injured in the southern city of Algeciras.

Police are still investigating the motive of the assault, but a National Court judge is investigating it as a possible act of terrorism. The suspect is believed to have acted alone.

Officers searched the as-yet unnamed suspect's home to "determine the nature, terrorist or otherwise," of the alleged crime, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.

The suspect is a Moroccan citizen with no prior criminal record "either in Spain or any other country," the interior ministry said. The suspect had been under a deportation order since June last year due to his unauthorized migrant status in Spain.

The attacks have shaken the multicultural city, located near the southern tip of Spain across a bay from Gibraltar. Witnesses said that in the second incident, the assailant jumped on the altar of the Church of Nuestra Señora de La Palma, wielding a machete. He then attacked a sacristan — tasked with preparing Mass — inside the church and chased him into a town square before killing him.

A priest was wounded earlier at the San Isidro church. The Salesian religious order said on Thursday he was out of danger and would be able to leave the hospital where he was being treated.

The Algeciras town hall identified the deceased sacristan as Diego Valencia and the wounded priest as Antonio Rodríguez.

The parish priest for Nuestra Señora de La Palma, the Rev. Juan José Marina, told Spanish media he thinks he was the attacker's intended target.

"In the same way that he sought out the priest at San Isidro and no one else, the same thing happened here," Marina said. "If I had been here, I would be dead."

A fellow sacristan who served with Valencia at the church, Manolo González, said the attacker climbed on the altar and Valencia came out "and asked to know what was going on."