Mayor of Ripoll, Jordi Munell (PDeCAT), has attended the Spanish Congress this Monday to denounce that, six months after the tragic attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, there are still holes in the investigation. "As a society we cannot end our mourning until we know the truth of what happened", said Munell, alongside deputy Jordi Xuclà in a press conference. Ripoll, in the north-west of Catalonia, was the home town of a number of the members of the terrorist cell. The appearance came a week after a polemic in the lower chamber when Ciudadanos were accused of "linking" the independence movement and the terror attacks.
Munell has described as "truly surprising" the reports that Abdelbaki es Satty, who had been imam of Ripoll and was, the mayor said, "responsible for the capture and radicalisation of the young men", was allegedly an informer of the CNI, Spain's intelligence service. "Whoever had this information didn't share it in the forums where they should have, be that the Security Board of Catalonia or of Ripoll," he said. "If someone had the information, we want to know if the events could have been avoided and if they have feelings of remorse".
The mayor took a particularly tough line saying that in Ripoll, and among the public, there is a "strange" feeling "of information being hidden, of betrayal". "Whether in the Congress, or in the secrets commission, it's being postponed and, with it, the feeling is being fuelled that in avoiding giving information there could be information being hidden. People feel insecure," said Munell. Xuclà added that after the Madrid train bombings in 2004, a commission was created in the lower chamber, but that on this occasion "silence was the response".
The PDeCAT deputy recalled the attempt by his party and ERC some weeks ago when they urged the Congress's Board to call interior minister Juan Ignacio Zoido to appear to explain the alleged links between the imam and the CNI. The request was rejected by the Board without even a vote, saying that such questions can only be dealt with in the secret Commission of Reserved Spending with an appearance behind closed doors from the CNI's director, Félix Sanz Roldán.
However, the deputy, who is a member of that commission, complained that, in their last meeting on 14th December, he asked to include a request for an appearance by Sanz Roldán on the agenda. Xuclà said that they didn't introduce the item that day but that at the end of the meeting, the Congress's speaker, Ana Pastor, set the date for the meeting to discuss it for the first week of this month. "We're now on 19th February and there's no meeting planned. We're out of the reasonable period within which a report should be opened, in the open or in secret".