FOCUS – Yasine Kanjaa, a young Moroccan who arrived in Spain last summer, is suspected of having killed a sexton and injured a priest in Algeciras. If he is the subject of an expulsion proceeding, no criminal record appears on his file.
A spine-chilling attack. Yasine Kanjaa is suspected of having killed a sexton and injured a priest in an attack in southern Spain, in Algeciras, on Wednesday January 25. The 25-year-old Moroccan, arrested by the police after the tragedy, was the subject of an expulsion proceeding from Spanish territory. No history of terrorism or evidence of radicalization appears on his criminal record. Arrived in Spain during the summer of 2022, Yasine Kanjaa was arrested by the police on June 16 in Cadiz, in the south-west of the country, according to the Spanish newspaper The confidential .
During his check, the police had found that the young man did not have in his possession the documents necessary to reside in the country. Deportation proceedings were therefore automatically initiated. However, the alleged murderer was never returned to Morocco. “As it is an administrative procedure (…), its implementation is not immediate“, said the Ministry of the Interior. Gibraltar authorities also said he was expelled in August 2019 from the British enclave, which he reached by jet ski.
No criminal record
The assailant lived in an apartment located in downtown Algeciras, not far from the two churches. He occupied it with other roommates, also of Moroccan nationality, reports ABC Sevilla. All attended the same mosque, not far from their place of residence. The latter was also searched a few hours after the attack, as part of the investigation entrusted to the Madrid court of the National Audience, for possible terrorist offenses. No trace of radicalization appears on his file and he was not under the surveillance of agents from the intelligence services or other police groups, “neither in recent days nor before“, Still relates the Spanish media.
A security source confirmed to AFP that he was not on file for radicalism in Spain or France. The suspect “has never been under the radar of a national service for radicalization” in Spain or in neighboring countries, also indicated Thursday evening the Minister of the Interior Fernando Grande-Marlaska during a visit to Algeciras, reports AFP. In the document authorizing the search of the suspect’s home and consulted by AFP, the magistrate in charge of the case makes the link between the attack committed by Yassine Kanjaa and the “jihadist Salafism”. The judge relates in particular how the suspect “looked up at the sky shouting words in Arabic among which you could hear Allah” when he wore “one last mortal blow” to the sacristan. He also assures that after his arrest, he “several times shouted ‘Allahu Akbar'”.
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Several witnesses to the attack also describe suspicious behavior. This is the case of a young Moroccan attacked by Yasine Kanjaa near the church of La Palma, a few hours before the crime, reports the national daily. The country. As they passed each other in the street, the alleged murderer allegedly hit him in the face with his hand, while shouting in Arabic: “You work for the “majia”“. An expression used in Morocco to say that a Muslim is against the religion he practices, details The country .
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Suspicious behavior
At 6:30 p.m., thirty minutes before the start of the attack, Yasine Kanjaa was seen in the San Isidro church where he injured the priest Antonio Rodríguez. “He took [le livre] of the gospel and began to say that it was not good“says a witness to The confidential. According to the daily, several other witnesses heard the suspect reproach people attending a religious service for professing a religion other than Islam.
The alleged murderer then left the church to return an hour later. During this time, he wore a white tunic under his djellaba. Upon his return, he also armed himself with a white machete whose side of the sharp blade is screen-printed with a skull. The Spanish newspaper also explains that Yasine Kanjaa was found with a Koran on him during his arrest. It was at 7 p.m. that the assailant attacked the priest Antonio Rodríguez, whom he seriously injured in the shoulder and neck. He then headed towardsthe Nuestra Señora de La Palma church where he attacked the sexton“, details the Minister of the Interior. The latter has “managed to get out of the church but was caught outside by the assailant who inflicted several fatal injuries on him”, continued the ministry. Seriously injured in the neck, the priest was, for his part, “out of danger”said his religious community on Thursday.
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The government of socialist Pedro Sánchez has so far refused to qualify this attack as terrorist. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, however, did not rule out Thursday evening that this act “may be terrorist in nature”pointing out that “all hypotheses remain open”. For Carlos Igualada, director of the International Observatory for Studies on Terrorism (OIET), Spain today faces the riskone-off actions» and not to «campaigns of attacks like a few years ago“. The last attack of this type dates back to August 2017. Two attacks by a jihadist cell left 16 dead and 140 injured on the avenue des Ramblas in Barcelona and in the seaside resort of Cambrils. They had been claimed by the Islamic State.
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