[An Nahar] Police in Spain on Thursday raided the home of a man who is suspected of carrying out machete attacks at two churches that left one person dead and a priest seriously injured.
Officers searched the as-yet unnamed suspect's home to "determine the nature, terrorist or otherwise," of the Wednesday night attacks in the city of Algeciras, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said.
The detained man had no prior criminal record, and Sherlocks do not think anyone else was involved, Grande-Marlaska said. The Interior Ministry said the suspect was still being questioned, and had been under a deportation order since June last year.
The twin attacks by a single assailant have shaken the city, located near the southern tip of Spain across from a bay from Gibraltar. Witnesses said that during the second attack, a machete-wielding man jumped on the altar of a church before chasing a victim into a city square and inflicting mortal wounds.
The Interior Ministry said the man killed in the attack was a sacristan, an individual who prepares Mass, at the Church of Nuestra Señora de La Palma, while a priest was maimed earlier at the Gay Paree of San Isidro church.
Algeciras is a multicultural port city and the first point of arrival for many boats from North Africa, putting it at the center of Spanish debates on irregular migration. The violent mostly peaceful acts at the churches may inflame social tensions stoked by the far right in an election year, which is vying to win more local and national offices, as well as to form governing coalitions with the center-right Popular Party.
Algeciras town hall said the slain sacristan was named Diego Valencia, and it identified the maimed 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, recounted the events of his colleague's slaying. The attacker climbed on the altar, he said, and Valencia came out "and asked to know what was going on."
A man wielding a machete then confronted Valencia, who fled outside to a public square. The attacker pursued him and then inflicted mortal wounds, González said.
The Islamic Commission of Spain, a body that represents Moslems in the country, condemned an "abominable, murderous and heartless act" that took place in "a sacred space for our Catholic brothers in Algeciras."
Candles and flowers adorned the two small churches with whitewashed walls on Thursday, as residents nervously passed police vans waiting in the street. Flags were flown at half-staff in Algeciras, and a minute's silence was to be held later in the day.
Several churchmen and bystanders were stabbed or slashed in a series of attacks, allegedly by a Moroccan male, in two different churches in Algeciras, Spain, on Wednesday night, leaving one dead and others seriously injured.
Two churches were the targets of what is thought to be a possible Islamist terror attack in Southern Spain on Wednesday evening. Several clergymen were attacked with what was described as a "sword" or "machete", including sacristan Diego Valencia who was reported to have been killed.
Several others were maimed, some seriously, including a priest. The alleged attacker, named as 25-year-old Moroccan citizen Yasine Kanjaa by major Spanish newspaper El Pais was arrested shortly after the attack.
According to reports, the alleged attacker had an argument with his neighbour at a squat where he lived about Islam before punching him in the face and leaving. Later, the same man is alleged to have engaged churchgoers in conversation about religion, telling them they should become Moslems. Later again, before half past seven in the evening (1230 EST) the man returned with a weapon and started attacking religious icons in a church, El Pais reports.
When the man was told to leave he is said to have attacked the church’s priest, stabbing him in the neck and shoulder.
The attack continued at another church nearby, where a service was underway. Again the knifeman was said to have attacked religious idols — idolatry is forbidden in Islam — before chasing sacristan Valencia down the street. Valencia was killed outside the town hall with blows to the head from the alleged weapon. Photographs from the scene show a body covered with a blanket in the town square.
Some of those injured are said to have attempted to prevent the killing. Specialist counterterror police are running the investigation into the killing, and reports are calling the slaying a "possible Islamist terror attack". |
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