European Union law was used to prevent the Spanish government deporting Catalonia terror mastermind imam Abdelbaki Es Satty, because a judge determined he did not pose a “serious threat to national security”.
Two EU Council Directives – numbers 2003/109/EC and 2001/40/EC – which say member states can only deport non-EU nationals who pose a “serious and present threat to public order or national security and safety”, were used by Judge Pablo de la Rubia to block Es Satty’s deportation, reports MailOnline.
The Spanish government had tried to deport the imam in 2014 after he had served his sentence in prison, where it is believed he was radicalised, for drug smuggling, and block the Moroccan national from entering the country for five years.
Senior government official David Barelles wrote on the order that the Islamist posed “a real threat which is sufficiently serious to justify his expulsion”.
But the judge used the EU laws, asserting Es Satty was not a threat, and said the Islamist was making attempts to “integrate” into Spanish society.
Judge De la Rubia wrote: “Although the conduct of the accused is serious, there is only one offence, which is old, and it is claimed he has laid down employment roots in Spain, which demonstrate his efforts at integration into Spanish society.”
He added that it would be “disproportionate” to deport the Islamist.
After successfully appealing his deportation, the drug dealer applied for asylum, ultimately allowing him to travel freely throughout the EU’s borderless Schengen Zone, where he was known to have travelled to the EU capital in Brussels, Belgium, shortly before the terror bombings there in 2016.
Es Satty became the imam of the mosque in Ripoll, where he recruited youngs Muslims to commit August’s terror attacks.
The two vehicular ramming attacks in Las Ramblas, Barcelona, and Cambrils, which Es Satty masterminded, have so far claimed 16 lives and left over 150 people injured.
It could have killed substantially more had Es Satty not been killed when the butane gas canisters and acetone peroxide (TATP) he was stockpiling in a house in Alcanar exploded, preventing its use to potentially strike tourist and religious sites, including the Catholic Basilica of la Sagrada Familia.