“Allah is great,” shouted Yasin Kanza, a 25-year-old Maghrebi. One sacristan dead and four wounded – among them a priest – that is the human toll of the attack.
Newsroom (28/01/2023 11:27 AM, Gaudium Press) The Mass ended this week in the Church of La Palma, in Algeciras, a city in southern Spain. It was the 7:30 mass, when a man came shouting, carrying a machete, throwing images, crosses and candles on the floor, heading towards the main altar.
The ‘mistake’ of the now deceased sacristan, Diego Valencia, was his insistence and his courage, because he demanded that Yasin Kanza leave the church, which the Muslim was doing. The man left through the sacristy, where he also threatened two women present there, and Diego again demanded that he leave the church. It was then that Kanza began to chase the sacristan with his machete, all the way to the Upper Square, where he caught up with him, hit him on the head and stabbed Diego to death. The police arrived and managed to overpower Kanza, after he offered a “great deal of resistance”, as he was making his way to a third church.
Earlier, Kanza had been in another church, the chapel of San Isidro, where he had also knocked over images with his machete. First he shouted at the parishioners, forcing them to abandon their faith in Christ. But then he returned with his murderous machete and, according to some sources, with a Koran. When Father Antonio Rodriguez, the chapel’s parish priest, tried to stop him but Kanza stuck the machete in the priest’s neck and nearly killed him. Father Rodriguez is recovering in the Puerta de Europa hospital.
With cries of “Allah is great” and “Death to Christians” Kanza was leaving a terrible trail of blood.
Yasin Kanza, had no Criminal Record, but was Being Tracked by the Police
Kanza, 25 years old Moroccan, had been living illegally in Spain since the summer. His “evasive” attitude and the fact that he circulated in marginal environments caught the attention of the police, who did not arrest him because he had no criminal record.
In statements to the media, the president of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno, said that apparently Kanza had gone through a process of radicalization and probably “a process of fanaticism that had led him to a religious motive,” although psychiatric analysis is pending.
Compiled by Florence MacDonald
