Organized under heavy police surveillance, the trial of the Barcelona attacks is due to start on Tuesday, November 10 at 10 a.m. local time (9 a.m. GMT), in front of the National Court of Audience in San Fernando de Henares, in the eastern suburbs of Madrid.
It is scheduled to last until December 16.
The attacks of August 17 and 18, 2017, claimed by the Islamic State group, left 16 dead and 140 injured.
The attackers had targeted the famous avenue des Ramblas, in the center of Barcelona, where a ram van had charged passers-by, as well as the seaside resort of Cambrils, 100 kilometers further south.
On the dock will be two alleged members of the group and a man presented as an accomplice.
The perpetrators of the double attack were killed by police bullets, including Younes Abouyaaqoub, the 22-year-old Moroccan who drove the van on the Ramblas, killing 14 people there, mostly foreign tourists, and injuring more than one. hundred.
In his escape, the assailant had murdered another person to steal his car before disappearing.
Hours after the Ramblas massacre, five other members of the cell carried out the second attack on the Cambrils seaside promenade, running over several people there with a vehicle before fatally stabbing a woman.
The five men were then shot dead by the police, as was Younes Abouyaaqoub, killed in a vineyard near Barcelona a few days later.
An improvised attack after an accidental explosion
The main accused in the trial is Mohamed Houli Chemlal, a 23-year-old man, accused of belonging to a terrorist organization, manufacturing and possession of explosives, as well as conspiring to cause chaos.
The prosecution, which in Spain pronounces its requisitions before the trial, demanded forty-one years in prison against this man from the Spanish enclave of Melilla, on the coast of Morocco.
He had revealed to investigators that the gang's initial plan was to carry out bombings against prestigious sites, such as the famous Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, Camp Nou (FC Barcelona stadium) and even the Eiffel Tower.
The second accused, Driss Oukabir, 31, brother of one of the jihadists killed, faces thirty-six years of imprisonment.
He had rented the van used on the Ramblas.
The last man on the bench, Said Ben Iazza, 27, faces eight years in prison for having lent a vehicle and papers to the attackers.
The trio are not, however, prosecuted for the attacks themselves, contrary to the wishes of the civil parties.
The imam suspected of having indoctrinated and recruited a dozen young people of Moroccan origin in the Pyrenean village of Ripoll had been killed in the explosion of a villa in Alcanar (200 kilometers south of Barcelona) caused by the explosives that 'they stored there.
This accidental explosion had upset the group's initial plans, prompting them to improvise the Barcelona and Cambrils attack.
The 16 victims of the double attack, mostly tourists, came from several countries (Spain, Germany, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, United States, Italy, Portugal).
Among them were two children aged 3 and 7, crushed on the Ramblas.
With AFP
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