Machete attack in Spanish churches investigated as possible terrorism

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - Spanish authorities are investigating a machete attack in Algeciras that left one clergyman dead and four injured on Wednesday night as a terrorist attack.

The attacker, who has been identified as Yassine Kanza, although spellings of his name vary in different media outlets, was arrested immediately after his rampage.

He is a 25-year-old Moroccan said to have been living in Spain irregularly as a squatter.

According to Spanish daily El Mundo, police had been monitoring him for the four days leading up to the attack due to suspicious behavior.

On Wednesday evening, the man entered two Churches in the Andalusian city wielding a machete. The first was the San Isidro church, where he brutally attacked a priest.

While the priest was severely injured, he is now in stable condition.

From there, Kanza walked to the Nuestra Senora de La Palma church, where a mass had recently finished. According to El Mundo, the sacristan, a layperson who owns a flower shop, was putting away sacred objects.

The attacker went up to the altar and began throwing things around. The sacristan, Diego Valencia, tried to stop him until he saw the attacker had a machete. He ran out of the church, but Kanza caught him in the middle of a central square.

“My sacristan was dead in the middle of the Alta Plaza with his head wide open,” priest Juan Jose Marina told El Mundo.

A young man of Moroccan origin also told Spanish daily El Pais that Kanza punched him in the head without saying a word while he was walking to a church.

“I think I was his first victim. He is Moroccan, and so am I; I don’t know what his problem is,” the victim told El Pais.

Due to the terrorism investigation, Spain’s interior minister canceled his trip to meet EU leaders in Sweden on Thursday. He will instead travel to Algeciras, according to Spanish news outlet Europa Press.

Algeciras has declared Thursday to be an official day of mourning. Political leaders across Spain have expressed their condolences for the attack, although the far-right party Vox is already using the attack to speak out against the danger of “Islamism.”