The imam who ‘ate up the brains’ of youths

RIPOLL (Spain): In a Spanish town by the Pyrenees mountains, a Moroccan imam has come under scrutiny, accused of creating the terror cell that allegedly launched the attacks in Spain.

Those who knew him described Abdelbaki Es Satty as a discreet and religious man, who had recently asked for a holiday from the mosque he was preaching in, apparently to return to Morocco for personal business.

But police believe he may have been among those blown up in an explosion on Wednesday in the house where the suspected attackers were building bombs.

The blast likely changed the plans of the attackers, who instead used vehicles to smash into pedestrians on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas boulevard and in the seaside resort town of Cambrils.

“On Tuesday, he left saying he was going on vacation to Morocco,” said fruitseller Nordeen El Haji, 45, who four months ago moved into the apartment that Satty occupied here.

“He spoke little, spent time with his computer in his room, and had an old mobile phone with no Internet, and few books,” said Satty’s flatmate.

On a piece of furniture lies the police search order dated Friday, just after the attacks.

Three days after the assaults, a picture was emerging of an imam who may have radical leanings.

El Mundo newspaper, quoting anti-terrorist sources, said Satty left prison in 2012, where “he had struck up a special friendship with another detainee, Rachid Aglif, nicknamed ‘the rabbit’.”

Aglif had been sentenced to 18 years over the 2004 Madrid train attacks that killed 191 people.

The imam had been placed in detention for drug trafficking, the newspaper said, adding that “he was shifting hashish between Ceuta and Algesiras”.

As local media speculated on the influence of the imam on the young attackers, his flatmate said in the last four months, he had not hosted any youths in the apartment.

“This imam was normal and appeared ordinary in public,” said Mohamed Akhayad, a 26-yearold