A sacristan has been killed and a priest seriously injured in an attack on two churches in southern Spain.
The attack was carried out on 25 January by 24-year-old Yasin Kanza, a Moroccan illegal immigrant, who allegedly yelled “Allahu Akhbar” as he entered the two churches in the town of Algeciras, wielding a machete.
Yasin Kanza first entered the church of San Isidro, where he knocked over candles and a crucifix.
When the elderly Fr Antonio Rodriguez Lucena, who was in the church at the time, tried to stop him the attacker struck him in the neck with the blade, causing a serious injury.
The priest has been hospitalised, and after undergoing emergency surgery, he is said to be in stable condition. Two bystanders were also injured in this first attack.
Kanza then left San Isidro and headed to the nearby church of La Palma. Inside he was again confronted, this time by the church warden, Diego Valencia, whom he stabbed in the abdomen and then struck in the head.
The warden still managed to make it outside the building, but Kanza caught up with him and, according to the police report, looked at the sky, pronounced words in Arabic, and then delivered the final blow that killed him.
Diego Valencia was married and a father, and ran a florist’s shop in town.
“Diego was my right-hand-man, a faithful helper”, said parish priest Fr Juan José Medina of the victim.
“That blow may have been intended for me, but the attacker found Diego instead”, he concluded, according to Spanish newspaper ABC.
The police report says that Kanza then tried to make his way to a third church, but that is when the police caught up with him.
He offered no resistance, dropped his machete and fell to his knees. He was arrested and is in custody.
According to the Spanish press, Yasin Kanza was awaiting deportation from Spain and although he had no criminal record he was being watched for “suspicious behaviour”.
He is also said to have a record of psychiatric disturbances in Morocco.
The incident shocked Spain, which has a large Moroccan community.
Despite occasional trouble – such as during the World Cup, when the African nation defeated Spain and riots broke out during celebrations by Moroccan fans – there is no significant history of religiously-motivated crime in Spain over the past few years.
The Spanish bishops have condemned the attack.
According to CNA, Francisco César García, the auxiliary bishop of Toledo and secretary general of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, said: “In these sad moments of suffering, we join the grief of the families of the victims and the Diocese of Cádiz and ask the God of life and peace for the speedy recovery of the injured.”
He later observed that that “in this case there was a religious motivation of hatred of the faith” but emphasised that “we cannot and should not demonise groups in general”.
Bishop García stated his “most absolute and total condemnation” of the attacks “with a special gravity, which is when this violence is wrongly tried to be justified in the name of God”.
He continued: “That is taking the name of God in vain, whatever the name of that one true God may be called.”
In a statement, the Spanish bishops' conference expressed their closeness to the families of the victims.
“As believers, we ask the God of mercy and peace to fill the hearts of the victims with hope and heal the wounded, accompany the Church and society in the search for peace, and to convert the hearts of violent people,” they said.
The Bishop of Cádiz-Ceuta, Rafael Zornoza, who had been on a pastoral visit to Algericas at the time of the attack, also issued a statement, saying that his diocese wished “to be bearers of peace and mercy in the midst of this world where we live, which has so many tensions and so many manifestations of inhuman violence”.
He expressed his gratitude to those praying for his diocese.
“The truth is that we feel the strength of the prayer of the entire Church and its closeness, its encouragement and its testimony strengthen us a lot,” he said.
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