Former Spanish Official Claims Intelligence Agency Orchestrated 2017 Catalonia Attacks

In a statement to the Catalanews agency, José Manuel Villarejo claimed that the National Intelligence Center (CNI) had orchestrated the attacks perpetrated on August 17 and 18, 2017 on the Rambla in Barcelona and in Cambrils, Spain. According to him, these attacks were aimed at destabilizing Catalonia before a referendum on independence. These Islamist terrorist attacks by vehicle-ram "were a serious mistake" on the part of the former director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Feliz Sanz Roldan, added the former official before the court.

José Manuel Villarejo’s allegations have provoked strong reactions from some Catalan political parties in favor of the region’s independence. Catalan President Pere Aragones demanded that the Spanish government re-examine the attacks and asked his administration’s legal team to examine the revelations of the former officer. As for the President of the Parliament, Laura Borras, she asked the legal team of the regional assembly to bring the case before the prosecutor.

On August 17, 2017, Younes Abouyaaqoub, a 22-year-old Moroccan, launched himself on the Ramblas in a van. He killed 14 people, including a 7-year-old Australian and a 3-year-old Spaniard, and injured around a hundred others. A few hours later, five of his accomplices imitated him in the night of August 17 to 18 and killed, in turn, passers-by in the seaside resort of Cambrils, south of Barcelona. The total toll of the attacks is 16 dead. The police killed six terrorists in a vineyard near Barcelona a few days later and two other members died in the explosion of a bomb-making workshop.