The black shadow of the Barcelona attacks: an unexpected explosion and two improvised attacks
The deflagration of the material they were handling killed two terrorists and led the rest to change their plan and attack in La Rambla and Cambrils
The attacks of August 17, 2017 in The Ramblas and in the early hours of August 18 in Cambrils they will not understand each other without the explosion of a house in reach (Tarragona) on the afternoon of August 16. In that building, a terrorist cell led by the former imam of Ripoll Abdelbaki is Saty and made up of young people from the town of Moroccan origin who had been in Catalonia He was preparing explosive devices for a major attack for which they had not chosen a date and place.
The explosion killed the imam and a member of the group. another survived, Mohamed Houli Chemlal, sentenced to 43 years in prison by the National High Court. The explosion of Alcanar forces the rest of the group, younger members, to improvise.
On August 17, a second explosion in the same house injured twenty constables and firefighters. It was then that the agents began to talk about a terrorist attack. After knowing what happened in Alcanar, Younes Abouyaaqoub, who had gone to pick up a van to load the explosives, decided to go to La Rambla and run over as many people as possible. He killed 13 – another woman of German origin eventually died of her injuries – and wounded 161.
The van stopped at Pla de l’s. Younes Abouyaaqoub escaped from there through the Boquera market and arrived at Diagonal, where he killed another man, stabbing him with a knife, to steal his car. He skipped a Mossos checkpoint at the exit of the city, injuring several agents, and after leaving the car parked he escaped on foot. He was shot down five days later in Subirats (Barcelona), when he threatened to blow up a simulated explosives belt.
Five other members of the cell launched a second attack. In the early hours of August 17, they ran over several people and attacked others with knives before a Mosso shot them all down. In that attack, a woman died and seven people were injured.
In May 2021, the National High Court imposed sentences of between eight and 53 years in prison on the three defendants. A mohamed huli Y Driss Oukabir, for being part of the terrorist cell; a Said Ben Yazza, for collaboration.
Contrary to what private suspicions demanded -not like the Prosecutor’s Office-, the court refused to convict them of the murders and injuries, for which the Justice holds the deceased terrorists responsible.
A few weeks ago, the Court’s Appeals Chamber lowered the sentences of Houli and Oukabir, which remained at 43 and 36 years respectively, for technical reasons. The effective compliance limit remains at 20 years, with which nothing changes for practical purposes. The Chamber again refused to convict them of the specific attacks, such as holding the State responsible for not having prevented them from acquiring materials that could be used as explosives.
The three defenses have appealed to the Supreme Court. There are also two accused, who return to request direct conviction for the murders and to uphold the subsidiary civil liability of the State.
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