by ROME – Yassine Kanjaa, the machete-wielding Moroccan jihadist who attacked Christians in a church in southern Spain this week, had been under a deportation order since June that was never followed up, the Associated Press reports.
As Breitbart News reported, Kanjaa attacked Christians in two Spanish churches with a machete Wednesday while shouting “Allahu akbar” and “Death to Christians,” killing one and wounding at least four more.
Spanish police raided Kanjaa’s home on Thursday and are treating the attack as an act of Islamic terrorism.
Kanjaa had been under a deportation order since June 2022 due to his unauthorized migrant status in Spain, but authorities failed to carry out the order.
A funeral mass takes place with the coffin of the church sacristan who was attacked and killed on Wednesday in Algeciras, Spain, on Friday 27 January 2023. Spanish police have raided the home of a 25-year-old Moroccan man wielding a machete over attacks on two Catholic churches that left a church officer dead and a priest injured in the southern city of Algeciras. A judge is investigating the incident as a possible act of terrorism. (AP Photo/Juan Carlos Toro)
The 25-year-old Moroccan had already been arrested in the neighboring British territory of Gibraltar in August 2019 when he tried to land from a jet ski without the necessary documentation and days later he was repatriated.
Algeciras, where Wednesday’s attack took place, is a southern port city and the first port of call for many boats traveling from North Africa.
Santiago Abascal, leader of the conservative political party Vox, condemned the government’s failure to act on Kanjaa’s deportation order.
“He had an order of deportation,” Abascal wrote on Twitter. “How many more like him can there be in Spain?”
‘Possible Islamist terror attack’: Clergy stabbed in Spanish churches, one killed, several injured https://t.co/T3VRbkSbAr
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) 26 January 2023
“The human trafficking mafias and the politicians who open their borders and shower them with subsidies cannot hide their responsibility,” he added.
Similarly, Popular Party (PP) President Alberto Núñez Feijóo said that “Islamic terrorism is a problem for European society.”
“Centuries have passed since a Catholic or Christian has killed because of his religion or belief,” Núñez Feijóo said. “And there are other countries that have citizens that have it.”
