Spain Port Reels After Church Attack As Suspect Background Emerges

Algeciras, Spain, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jan, 2023 ) :The city of Algeciras was united in mourning Thursday, a day after a machete-wielding man stormed two churches, killing a verger and seriously wounding a priest in the multicultural southern Spanish port.

The attacks took place on Wednesday evening as worshippers met to celebrate the Eucharist at two churches near each other in the city. Police arrested the alleged assailant, a 25-year-old Moroccan, at the scene.

As investigators pressed ahead with a terrorism probe, police carried out an early-morning raid on his home.

The interior ministry said he had been served with a deportation order in June but had no prior convictions and had not been under surveillance.

In 2019, he had been deported from Gibraltar on grounds of illegal entry, a government statement from the tiny British enclave said.

He was deported on August 8 along with three other immigrants, it said.

At midday, several hundred mourners gathered in stunned silence outside Nuestra Senora de La Palma church where the verger Diego Valencia was killed, many of them in tears.

Flowers were laid and candles lit in the square, and a minute's silence was observed while the church bells rang.

"We have lived here for years and we have always been very welcomed," said Nawal Montaguikie, a Moroccan woman in her 40s who remembered Valencia as "a gentle person".

"What did he do to deserve this?" she said, her voice trembling with emotion.

"We condemn this man and what he's done. I hope he rots in jail." Also present was Juan Jose Marina, La Palma's parish priest, who had been conducting a service elsewhere when the attack that claimed his verger's life occurred.

"If I am alive, it's because Diego died instead of me. I was supposed to be there," he said, his eyes swollen from weeping.

Many in the crowd were visibly moved, among them family members, police officers, town council employees and several veiled women who could not hold back their tears.

Local media said the suspect lived near the churches, which are just 300 metres apart in the town of around 120,000 residents.