The wives of jihadists or the attack on Torre Pacheco: the causes in the AN to which the Algeciras attack is added

MADRID, 26 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The alleged lone wolf of Torre Pacheco, the wives of jihadists repatriated from Syria, or the attacks on August 17, 2017 in Barcelona and Cambrils, are some of the causes that the National Court has faced in recent months, and to which is now added the investigation of the attack in Algeciras (Cádiz) this Wednesday that resulted in the murder of a sacristan and several injured, including a priest

Beyond the multitude of minor cases that go through the offices of the central investigative courts related to accused of jihadist self-indoctrination, one of the most important issues related to jihadism and that is still alive in the National Court is that of the fatal outrage in Pacheco Tower (Murcia).

It was in September 2021 when the Central Investigating Court number 1 took over the investigation of that outrage on a terrace of a bar that ended with one of the diners deceased and with the death of the driver, a Moroccan citizen.

Sources of the investigation of this possible jihadist attack explain to Europa Press that procedures are still being carried out to determine the network profiles of the person responsible to find out if there was self-indoctrination. They also add that the court is awaiting a response from various letters rogatory and that for the moment the investigation remains secret.

It should be remembered that it has not been ruled out that the alleged jihadist suffered from some type of mental illness. Other sources pointed out from the beginning of the investigation that the indications led the investigators to think that it could be a terrorist attack, although they understood that the person responsible did not belong to any terrorist cell.

More recently, this same month of January, Judge Santiago Pedraz agreed to a provisional detention without bail for Yolanda Martínez and Luna Fernández, the two Spanish women married to jihadists who were repatriated to Spain from refugee camps in Syria.

The magistrate of the Central Court of Instruction Number 5 made this decision on January 11 after the appearance of both, on which an international search and arrest warrant for alleged crimes of terrorism weighed. It should be remembered that Martínez has 4 children and Fernández 5 children plus another 4 minors in their care.

The two women, according to the judge, would have participated in activities in favor of the Islamic State, both before moving to the Syrian-Iraqi zone, and when they moved with their husbands in mid-2014 to those conflict zones, sharing and accepting the same fate for those with the "objective of demonstrating their integration into the aforementioned terrorist organization."

One day after Judge Pedraz agreed to provisional detention, the families of the two women offered a press conference in which they expressed their confidence in achieving the "temporary foster care" of the minors after the social services of the Community of Madrid Identify the children.

Recently, specifically last November, the National Court tried six men as alleged members of a jihadist cell developed with "the ideology" of the Islamic State and which had among its plans "the perpetration of an attack" in Barcelona, ​​where they were settled.

In the oral hearing, the Prosecutor's Office requested between 14 and 8 years in prison for crimes of promotion and management of a terrorist group, integration into a terrorist group and active collaboration with a terrorist group. The Criminal Chamber is still working on the drafting of the sentence related to this trial, which concluded last December.

Rabah H., designated by the Public Ministry as the alleged leader of the jihadist cell, denied in his statement the facts of which he is accused. "We are friends, there is no cell here," he assured, insisting that he was accused "of something that is a lie." "We are not a band or have something to do: each one lives his life," he added.

Regarding procedures related to jihadism, the Criminal Chamber is also working on drafting a new sentence on the four defendants who were acquitted of forming a jihadist front while in prison, to unite prisoners for crimes related to jihadism. Islamist terrorism.

It was last December when the Appeals Chamber upheld the Prosecutor's appeal and urged the aforementioned Criminal Chamber to draft a new ruling focusing on the rulings contained in the acquittal.

In the ruling that annulled the sentence, the Appeals Chamber referred to the correspondence exchanged by the defendants. "Its purpose is not to practice patience, perseverance and strength in order to comply with the respective criminal responsibilities, but to keep the greatest number of followers in the jihadist ideology to continue at the time of release from prison with the defense of the radical jihad", clarified the magistrates.

"That same purpose of recruiting other prisoners for the jihadist cause and continuing their fight after their release," stated the Appeals Chamber, "is what is stated in the facts that led some of the defendants to make graffiti on the walls of DAESH symbols, and to elaborate the playground program, and all this following the postulates of the terrorist organization".

Undoubtedly, the most relevant trial related to jihadism that the AN has faced in recent times has been that of the attacks on August 17, 2017 in Barcelona and Cambrils, which led to 16 deaths and up to 350 victims due to physical or psychological damages.

On May 27, 2021, the NA sentenced Houli Chemlal and Driss Oukabir to 53 years and 6 months in prison and 46 years in prison, respectively, for belonging to a terrorist organization; possession, deposit and manufacture of explosive substances or devices of a terrorist nature; and havoc in an attempt of a terrorist nature in competition with 29 crimes of injuries due to serious negligence. The third defendant, Said Ben Iazza, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for collaboration with a terrorist organization.

This sentence was modified in July 2022 on appeal after partially estimating the appeals presented by two of the three convicted, and the prison sentence originally imposed on Chemlal and Oukabir was reduced by ten years, to 43 and 36, respectively, considering that they did not have a real intention to attack with the second explosion in the house of Alcanar.

After that resolution, the three defenses announced appeals before the Supreme Court. The same decision was adopted by three accusations: one representing injured police officers, one representing the father of the child murdered in the attacks, and another from another victim.