Yassine Kanjaa, the man arrested for the attack on two churches in Algeciras that resulted in the murder of a sacristan, has acknowledged the facts before specialists in the fight against terrorism, according to police sources confirm to La Vanguardia. The lone actor from Algeciras has admitted that he was “fully aware” when late on Wednesday afternoon he wielded the large machete and attacked two churches in the city of Cádiz. He did it, according to the same sources, “by divine imposition.”
During the interrogations to which he has been subjected this weekend, the arrested man explained that he carried out the attack “in the name of God; against the devil.” In his account, the 25-year-old Moroccan has also detailed that he used to “see the devil in the eyes of teddy bears.” Regarding the documentation seized and analyzed in electronic devices, the Police have concluded that it is “very childish” jihadist material, very basic to radicalization. Experts in the fight against terrorism consider that the profile of the detainee responds to that of a lone wolf who suffered a very rapid process of radicalization.
This Monday around 9:00 a.m., he has been taken to the National Court to testify before the judge investigating the case, Joaquín Gadea. After that, the Prosecutor’s Office has requested the unconditional imprisonment and without bail of the detainee who ended the life of a sexton and injured four other people shouting “Allah”. The crimes attributed to the person being investigated, in a first legal qualification, are a crime of terrorist murder, an attempted crime of terrorist murder and a crime of terrorist injuries.
The prosecutor considers that given the seriousness of the facts with which he is accused, in addition to the risk of criminal repetition and flight, the most appropriate thing is to order his entry into preventive detention while the case is investigated by the judge of the National Court Joaquín Gadea.
The judge has opened the proceedings for crimes of terrorism, although initially there were doubts as to whether it was a crime with jihadist overtones or an attack derived from the author’s psychiatric problems.
Investigation sources acknowledge that Kanjaa has a psychiatric history but it is also true that he has joined an express radicalization, so in his case everything points to the occurrence of both factors.
Another of the unknowns to be resolved is whether Kanjaa’s action was due to indoctrination or if it was motivated or guided by a third person. The data available to the researchers at this time is that it was he himself, with the consumption of material who acted alone, without the support of other people.
According to what the judge recounted in his entry and search order, the sacristan tried to flee when he saw the young man with a machete heading towards him but was hit by the attacker “who, once he has him on the ground, holds the katana with both hands and looking up at the sky and shouting a few words in Arabic among which the word ‘allah’ is heard, he deals one last fatal blow”.