Victims ask not to be forgotten on the seventh anniversary of the 17-A attacks

The victims of the jihadist attacks of 17-A, which this Saturday marks seven years, are demanding their rights and that they not be forgotten. The anniversary of the massacre, which left 16 dead and 350 wounded, as recognised by the courts, was remembered with a sober act on La Rambla in Barcelona. Despite the austerity of the public demonstrations, the spirit of protest is more present than ever. A hundred of those affected, especially those who suffered psychological after-effects, have still not received the compensation they are entitled to. Others, such as Javier Martínez, father of the three-year-old boy killed in the mass attack, still demand to know “the whole truth” now that the sentence is now final and the Constitutional Court has rejected an appeal by them to investigate the alleged connection of the imam of Ripoll, Abdelbaki Es Satty – the mastermind of the attacks – with the intelligence services.

The event on La Rambla was attended by authorities and relatives of the dead and injured victims; among others, the mother of the Australian child Julian Cadman, also run over, like Xavi, on the Barcelona promenade. Last year, six minutes of silence were observed at the request of the victims, one “for each year of neglect” that they have perceived from the institutions. This year the formula has not been repeated, although the feeling of oblivion is shared. Punctually, at 10:00, the attendees have laid flowers in memory of their loved ones at the Pla de l’Os memorial, located next to the Joan Miró mosaic, the place where the murderous van driven by Younes Abouyaaqoub stopped. The event was not attended by the president Salvador Illa, but two of his advisers have done so: Núria Parlon (Interior) and Ramon Espadaler (Justice).

A group of people have silently displayed banners accusing the State of collusion with the massacre. “We demand accountability”; “state terrorism”; “what are you hiding from 17-A?” These hypotheses, encouraged by parties such as Junts, have never been endorsed by either the Mossos investigations or the sentences. The speculations are based on the contacts that, in the years prior to 17-A, the imam Es Satty had maintained with the Civil Guard and the CNI while serving a prison sentence for drug trafficking. Javier Martínez, Xavi’s father, is the one who has fought the hardest to ensure that “the whole truth” of the attacks is known and believes that investigations should continue along these lines.

The seventh anniversary has now been reached with a final verdict. In November 2023, the Supreme Court confirmed the judicial account of the jihadist attacks of August 17, 2017, introduced minor modifications to the prison sentences and rejected any investigation into Es Satty’s links or into the possibility that the imam – killed in the explosion in Alcanar that ruined the cell’s initial plans – was still alive. Martínez’s last remaining appeal in Spain was to the Constitutional Court, which denied it last May.

Appeal to the ECHR

On social media, Martínez has regretted that the Constitutional Court has “denied the right to the truth” and has asked to file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) through two specialized lawyers. “We also hope for the reactivation of the long-awaited commission of inquiry in Congress, the Government of Pedro Sánchez should commit to declassifying all secret documentation on the attacks,” he said.

Robert Manrique, a victim of the ETA attack on Hipercor, is one of the people who has worked hardest to help the victims of 17-A. After the event, he criticised the lack of attention to victims of terrorism, and demanded the creation of an office to assist them and a protocol for assistance, as well as a specific Catalan law on this matter. Manrique has assured that, beyond the occasional tributes that are necessary, remembrance must take the form of practical assistance to victims throughout the year.

The feeling of abandonment has accompanied the victims of the 17-A attacks almost since that afternoon, when a rental van driven by Younes Abouyaaqoub burst into La Rambla and ran over dozens of people. Later, while Abouyaaqoub began an escape that would end with his death days later, four colleagues from the Ripoll cell (Girona) were driving to Cambrils, where they caused chaos on the seafront until they were shot down by the Mossos.

There were a total of 16 dead and almost 350 affected, including those who suffered physical injuries and those who suffered psychological after-effects. Many of them did not feel adequately supported by the administration. And almost a hundred have still not received the corresponding compensation. Only the help of people like Manrique and, above all, the sentence of the National Court against three members of the Ripoll cell, came to the rescue. The resolution was pioneering: it maintained that the victims had been the “great forgotten ones” of the process, it reproached the investigators for not having been systematic in their search and concluded that the injured should be recognized, but also those who had suffered psychological damage.

Ripoll inaugurates a monument

The experience of the attacks is even more painful in Ripoll, the town where the young people who, after being radicalised by the imam Es Satty, carried out the attacks were born and raised. Their initial objective was to carry out a large attack with explosives in emblematic places such as the Sagrada Familia or the Camp Nou. But a fortuitous explosion in the house in Alcanar (Tarragona) that they had occupied killed the imam on 16 August, which forced the cell, already convinced of killing, to improvise a plan. The attacks left a deep wound in Ripoll that has not yet healed and helped, among other things, to raise the mayor’s office to the ultra Sílvia Orriols, from Aliança Catalana, who stoked fear of Islam.

Ripoll’s relationship with those events remains controversial. A year after the attacks, there were events “for coexistence.” Then there was silence. Until this year, when for the first time an event was organized in homage to the victims (this Sunday, at 11:00) at which a monument commissioned by the Ripoll City Council will be inaugurated. It is a marble monolith, the work of local sculptor Domènec Batalla, on which the names of the victims have been engraved. The work will be installed in front of the monastery of Ripoll, a municipality in which, thanks to the work of Orriols, the three people convicted of the attacks – Driss Oukabir, Mohamed Houli and Said Ben Iazza – were declared personae non gratae last January.

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