Secret services ruled out terror attacks orchestrator as collaborator after conducting several interviews

Spanish intelligence agency interviewed Abdelbaki es Satty, the orchestrator of the 2017 Barcelona terror attacks, at least six times in attempt at getting information about jihadist circles between 2012 and 2014, but ruled him out as a potential collaborator.

The interviews were done while he was in prison in Castellón and before he went to live in Ripoll where he became an imam, but he was ruled out as the secret services didn't trust his information.

The Spanish secret services, known by its Spanish acronym CNI, focused its efforts on other individuals in 2014 and 2015 at a time of increased jihadist activity in Europe, after not detecting he was a risk.

These facts have been revealed by documents declassified by the Spanish government, and were stated by the former director of the CNI, Félix Sanz Roldán, to the official secrets committee of Congress in 2018 following the attacks of August 17 in Barcelona and Cambrils.

Terror attacks

On August 17, 2017, a van sped through the middle of the pedestrianized area on Barcelona's La Rambla boulevard. The perpetrator fled by foot and killed another person in order to steal the victim's car to make an escape. 

Nine hours after the Barcelona attack, five men drove into pedestrians in the southern Catalonia beach town of Cambrils, killing one woman and injuring six others. All five of those attackers were shot and killed by police.

In total, the attacks took the lives of 16 people and left 140 injured.

These events were orchestrated by a jihadist group based in Ripoll, in the Pyrenees, under the town's imam Abdelbaki Es Satty, who died alongside another member of the group in an accidental explosion in Alcanar, in southern Catalonia, on the eve of the attacks. 

The  remaining three terrorist group members were sentenced to up to 43 years behind bars by Spain's National Court.