Can the case of the terrorist attack on Las Ramblas be reopened?

MadridThe statements of one of those convicted for 17-A, Mohamed Houli, who has assured that the National Intelligence Center (CNI) knew the imam's "intentions" The lawyers of one of the accused in the trial, Abdelbaki Es Satty, have not surprised the lawyers of one of the accused in the trial. Specifically, that of the parents of Xavi, the 3-year-old boy who died in La Rambla, who during the proceedings tried to have it investigated whether the secret services were behind the attacks or, at least, whether they committed serious negligence. "We are studying it and seeing how we approach it," says lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas in the ARA, who advances the intention of filing a new complaint against the head of the CNI at that time, Félix Sanz Roldán, and his political representatives. Whether it would be against former president Mariano Rajoy, former Defence Minister María Dolores de Cospedal or former Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido, has not yet been decided. Cuevillas believes that there is not enough grounds to convict anyone, but there is to open an investigation.

Juntos has supported this theory from Congress, according to which, in addition, it would not be proven that Es Satty had died in the explosion of Alcanar on August 16, 2017, although one of his ears was found among the rubble. Carles Puigdemont's party has found in this Congressional commission of inquiry the formula to investigate further what was left out of the trial. The figure of the imam or his links with the CNI were practically not addressed, despite the fact that the summary already included visits by secret agents and the Civil Guard in 2014 to the Castellón prison, where he was serving a sentence for a drug trafficking case. In fact, declassified documents provided to the commission of the lower house have given more information about these contacts, although they reflect that the CNI is going to rule out Es Satty as a possible confidant and lost track of him because he did not perceive that he was radicalized. "They had the cell monitored," says, on the contrary, the lawyer Cuevillas, who also remembers that the former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo insinuated that in the CNI "got out of hand". Last December, during his appearance before the commission, Villarejo said that the secret services could have "avoid" the attacksbut that they did not provoke them in any way.

The lawyer points out that the intention is not to reopen the case, which even had the confirmation of the sentence to the Supreme Court, but to open a new one. Due to the subject matter it deals with, it should be in the National Court, but if Zoido is included in the complaint, who is a member of the European Parliament, he should be in the Supreme Court due to his status as a privileged person. The objective, he adds, is "to investigate what they did not want to investigate", following the same line that has led Xavi's parents to take the case to the National Court. European Court of Human Rights to force the State to clarify all the facts. Cuevillas' strategy will hardly have the approval of the Prosecutor's Office, which during the trial of 17-A did not give credence to these theories. Sources from the public ministry familiar with the case describe as "nonsense" what Houli said in Congress and believe that it "makes no sense" to try to reopen it. They attribute the demonstrations to the fact that the convicted man is in prison.