The political parties ERC and PDeCAT have entered a joint request in the Spanish Congress for an immediate appearance by the Interior minister, José Ignacio Zoido, before a commission to clarify the links between Abdelbaki Es Satty and the CNI, Spain's intelligence agency. Es Satty was the imam of Ripoll, a town in the north of Catalonia, and is believed to have been the leader of the cell behind the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils in August 2017.
The two parties believe reports that appeared last November, revealing the imam's role as a CNI informant, are "very serious", and they believe the relationship needs to be clarified.
The call came from ERC's spokesperson in the Congress, Gabriel Rufián, during a meeting of the Interior commission. He also asked "why the Mossos d'Esquadra [Catalan police] were not aware of the danger posed by this individual", even though Es Satty had a relationship with the Spanish police. Rufián also called the ministry's management as "terrible" and full of "shadows".
For their part, PDeCAT's spokesperson on the commisson, Feliu Guillaumes, highlighted the importance of the minister "being able to clarify the facts" and expressed regret that it "creates a feeling of insecurity". "There's no better policy than truth and transparency," he added.
Abdelbaki Es Satty, considered to have been the mastermind of the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils last August, was an informant of the CNI in 2014, when serving a sentence for drug trafficking in Castelló prison. The CNI admitted this themselves, after reports appeared in the media.