Spain: Did the head of an Islamist terrorist cell really blow up?

June 19, 2020  Ralf Streck

Ever stranger circumstances come to light, statements have been hidden, the imam was an agent of the secret service, the surviving terrorists were not charged with murder

It is no longer a secret that the head of the terrorist attacks in the summer three years ago in Barcelona and Cambrils was an agent of the Spanish secret service .

The Público newspaper revealed a year ago that the intelligence agency and other Spanish security forces had been in contact with the Imam Abdelbaki Es Satty until the attacks in August 2017, which Telepolis reported in detail ( Spanish intelligence agency controlled terror cell .

Público has now added and published that a key statement regarding Es Satty’s work for Spanish intelligence in the mountain of investigative files has been hidden by 100,000 pages and has been ignored by the Public Prosecutor and the Civil Guard. The newspaper does not consider it to be a coincidence, after all, it was a main witness whose interrogation had expressly been requested by Spain from the Belgian authorities.

Público rather assumes that the statement should remain hidden. It is therefore not mentioned in a summary of the investigation as part of a request for legal assistance and it does not appear in the table of contents of a CD on which it is stored. Neither the judge nor the lawyers knew about the existence of the statement. And no translation of the statement was sent to the judge responsible.

It is the five-page testimony of Soliman Akaychouh, the head of a mosque in Diegem near Brussels, where Es Satty wanted to preach. Akaychouh was questioned just three days after the attacks and in the statement published by Público stated that Es Satty said she was in contact with the Spanish secret service over the phone. "He told me that he spoke to the Spanish secret service, who among other things wanted to know where he was," said the head of the mosque.

The imam was suspicious of the head of the mosque because of his radicalism and extremism. That is why he contacted the Belgian police. She then started an inquiry to the Catalan police. However, this did not result in anything, since the Mossos d'Esquadra, as is known, had not been informed by the Spanish colleagues about the activities of the well-known radical Islamist and former drug dealer. As reported by Telepolis , the Mossos were also dependent on access to key data and resources at the Center for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO).

Behind this was an incredible process in which Spanish national police officers warned radical Islamists in 2015 of the investigation by the Catalan police . The troop was raised with the "Operación Caronte" and wanted to carry out attacks on Jewish institutions in Barcelona and the Parliament. The Islamists were also in contact with a neo-Nazi, friend of the chief of the troops , to get weapons and explosives. And surprisingly, he was not accused of "supporting terrorism".

The major parties prevent the imam from being involved with the security forces

These events are part of a series of curiosities about Islamist activities in Catalonia and Es Satty. Because since 2003 he was known to Spanish security forces as a radical Islamist. He was in contact with radical Islamists and was friends with one of those who caused the 2004 massacre in Madrid with 191 deaths . Strangely enough, Es Satty was released early from jail, where he was sitting for drug trafficking. And his deportation to Morocco, which had been expressly stated in the sentence after the sentence, was also not implemented because he did not assume any "danger" .

There are still many oddities. There is the fact that all major parties in the Spanish parliament also refuse to investigate the imam's involvement with the security forces. Then there is the fact that the surviving members of the terrorist cell are not charged with murder even though they killed 17 people - including a German woman - and were planning huge attacks. They were prevented because part of the force blew up in the bombing the night before.

"We doubt that Ripoll's Imám is dead"

The newest and most interesting oddity, however, is that now there are serious questions as to whether Es Satty, the intelligence agent, actually blew up when bombing Alcanar, which has always been assumed. Lawyer Jaume Cuevillas said on Catalan television: "We doubt that the Imám of Ripoll is dead." Cuevillas represents the family of the young Xavier Martínez, who was also murdered during the terrorist voyage on the Ramblas.

He found no evidence in the investigation files, such as DNA evidence that could prove that Es Satty was actually in the house at the time of the explosion. According to the investigators, four to five terrorists are said to have been there. However, only remains of two people were found in the pile of rubble, of whom only one could have been identified. Witnesses also testified that the imam's car left shortly after the explosion, which was later found in a neighboring village.

The cell phone of Es Satty was also not found in the pile of rubble. The lawyer reports from the investigation files that the phone was still called four days after the explosion. The email address that the terror chief used to have contact with the secret service, as Público had uncovered, was also used after the explosion. It is also striking for Cuevillas that no one claimed the body of the imam, but the imam's niece bought two plane tickets the night after the explosion and hours before the attack in Barcelona. Because of all of this, the lawyer expressed "justified doubts" that Es Satty is dead. 
(Ralf Streck )

https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Spanien-Ist-der-Kopf-islamistischer-Terrorzelle-wirklich-in-die-Luft-geflogen-4789034.html