The façade of number 10 Ruiz Tagle street in Algeciras is not a harbinger of what is kept inside the ruined office where Yasine Kanjaa lived, the man arrested as the perpetrator of the deadly attack on two churches in this city of Cádiz. The smell of humidity mixes with the stench given off by the garbage that accumulates in each corner of this kind of pen with two houses. Dirty clothes thrown on the floor, tiles broken into dozens of pieces and plants growing in the cracks are the prelude to the two substandard housing in this block in which the detained Moroccan lived with two other roommates.
According to municipal sources, the detainee arrived in Algeciras in June of last year. It is the same month in which an expulsion order was issued, which did not materialize. Despite being in an irregular situation in the country, he did not have a criminal record nor was he being investigated for terrorism. His radicalization, according to the researchers, has been very fast. It is one of the profiles that experts in the fight against terrorism fear the most.
At mid-morning this Wednesday, the main door of the building that overlooks the corrala was open. No one opened any of the doors of the two houses despite the insistence. Deathly silence. From one of the white walls of the patio, eaten away by moss, there is still hanging a red misbaha, a chain with little balls connected by a thread that the faithful of the Islamic religion use to count the number of repetitions of the tasbih, the prayer of worship. What the rosary is for Catholics.
In the vicinity of the Plaza Alta de Algeciras, where Yasine Kanjaa ended the life of the sacristan Diego Valencia after striking him several times with a machete, another misbaha and the murder weapon were found. When Yasine Kanjaa carried out the attacks on both churches, he did so shouting “Allah is great”, according to witnesses of the dramatic scenes. The sheath of that large knife was found by the agents in his home.
At the home of the arrested person, who will be brought before the courts next Monday at the National Court, the agents spent a couple of hours searching all the rooms in search of evidence that would help to elucidate the motivation for the attack. The agents took documentation and computer material that is being analyzed by experts in the fight against terrorism. From the first inquiries, the agents have extracted the main hypothesis that they have transferred to the National Court: Yasine Kanjaa is a jihadist with mental imbalance.
