The astonishing news revealed this month in Catalonia is that it has been confirmed that the Spanish state police deliberately refused to warn of an impending terrorist attack in Barcelona in order to “scare” the Catalan independence movement.  Lorena Sorentes reports for ecosocialist.scot.

José M. Villarejo, the former police commissioner of the Spanish Police (“Policía Nacional”), has leaked serious information about the involvement of the Spanish intelligence services (the CNI) in the terrorist attacks that Barcelona and Cambrils suffered during summer in 2017 leading to the death of 15 people [These events are known in Catalonia by the date abbreviation “17A” – the caption in the picture above can be translated as “We Remember 17A“].

According to Villarejo, the CNI miscalculated their operation of intending to “scare” Catalonia a few months before the independence referendum that was going to be held in October 2017.

Villarejo had been previously distanced from participating in the trial and investigation of the jihadist attacks, where as well as 15 deaths hundreds were also injured.  But the judge gave him the opportunity to make a statement at the Spain’s National Audience Court in Madrid in January.  He accused the commander of the CNI of deliberating letting the Ripoll jihadist cell act carry out their terrorist plan. The intention of the CNI was to frighten the Catalan people and institutions as a punishment against the Catalan government’s independence referendum, taking place across the nation on the 1st October; and that they gave the jihadist imam of Ripoll, whose extremist ideas were known by Spanish authorities, the opportunity to radicalise the perpetrators of the massacre in Barcelona and the parallel attacks in Cambrils and Alcanar.

The former police commissioner also declared that the CNI had been warned about the intentions of jihadists, linked to Daesh/”Islamic State”, in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, but the intelligence services alleged there were not reliable sources to prove what would end up happening in Las Rambla, the main street in Barcelona at the centre of the attack where a terrorist van was driven into crowds on 17 August 2017.

The victims’ families had asked for an investigation involving the Spanish intelligence agency, as they were suspicious of the connections between the CNI and the imam, and had opened a website to demand that the truth could come out as soon as possible. Some of them have been denouncing the obvious links that the Spanish institutions had with the Ripoll religious leader since the beginning of the trial, their demands being ignored by Catalan and Spanish authorities.

The fact that the terrorist activity was not reported due to its location (the Catalan nation) and political interests from the Spanish central administration shows how imperialist states are capable of using undemocratic methods to suppress dissent if this threatens their authoritarian rule.

Tributes to those killed and injured in the 17A terrorist attacks
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