Catalonia and Spain split widens: Barcelona terror attack sparks fresh independence row

Both administrations have pointed the finger of blame at the other with Madrid saying the Catalan police missed a warning over the alleged terror cell leader and imam Abdelbaki Es Satty from the Belgium authorities.

Barcelona fired back its security forces have been frozen out in the sharing of information from Europol.

In Catalonia, both the AUGC (Unified Association of Civil Guards) and the SUP (Unified Union of Policeman) issued a joint press statement saying that they denounced what they considered to be “the exclusion and the isolation suffered” by both organisations “during the investigation into and management of the attacks”.

The statement said: “Once more the weakness of the institutions and political leaders of our country has meant that the experience and the nationwide structure of the Police and the Civil Guard in the area of the anti-terrorist fight have been wilfully left out of the investigation.”

The statement added that public safety could be put at risk due to this.

In particular, Catalonia highlighted the issue that the TEDAX (Technical Specialists in the Deactivation of Explosive Artefacts) team of the Civil Guard had been blocked from gaining access to the house in the town of Alcazar after the explosion.

Officials claim they were “deliberately sidelined” in the investigation due to political motivations in an attempt to give the impression that an independent Catalonia state would not be able to cope with such an incident.

The statement added this amounted to “the flagrant breach of the co-operation agreements as well as the deficient operation of the communication mechanisms between the Security Forces and Corps of our country”.

With Spain not recognising Catalonia’s claim to independence it had blocked the region’s security forces from having access to information held by Europol which could have helped prevent the attacks that killed 15 people in Barcelona and Cambrills.

Authorities in Madrid though have since granted access to Mossos d’Esquadra – Catalonia’s police force – from September.

In turn, Madrid has accused the Catalan authorities of failing to act on a warning from the Belgium authorities in March 2016 regarding Es Satty.

Hans Bonte, the mayor of the Flemish town of Vilvoorde, said local security forces had emailed an official in the Catalan police to express disquiet about the imam.

Es Satty had been living in Ripoll where he had been appointed as an imam two years ago, despite having served a prison sentence in Spain for drug smuggling and spent the early months of last year in Vilvoorde, Belgium.

Mr Monte told the Spanish newspaper El País: “The imam of Diegem [another Belgian town near Vilvoorde] asked about the man who had moved to Vilvoorde.

“He said he acted strangely and told him he’d left Spain because he had no future there and had proclaimed himself imam, though he had no accreditation.”

Mr Monte said that a Catalan official replied on the same say saying that Es Satty was not known to the authorities and had no known links to extremist organisations.

The Catalan interior ministry confirmed the Belgian communication but emphasised that it was “an informal contact” between two people who had met at international conferences.

A spokeswoman for the ministry said: “It wasn’t an official communication, which would arrive by other channels.”

It is believed that the information was not shared with other anti-terror authorities.

The Catalan government has also complained that its leader Carles Puigdemont had been deliberately left out of the television coverage of the minute’s silence observed in Barcelona’s main square Plaça de Catalunya where the country’s main dignitaries and King Felipe had gathered to pay their respects.

The Spanish public TV network provided the broadcast signal via the Spanish government’s HQ in Madrid, and while it focused on the king and the Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy it failed to broadcast images of Mr Puigdemont.

The ongoing tensions continued on Wednesday when the Spanish Minister for Education, Culture and Sport Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, has travelled to Barcelona.

While he signed the book of condolences for those killed in the attacks and laid a floral tribute at the Miró mosaic on Las Ramblas, he was criticised by members of the public for merely going “just to have his photo taken”.

The latest polling on the question of Catalan independence would indicate the referendum will be close, with a recent poll indicating that 41 per cent of Catalonians are in favour of independence, with 49 per cent against, according to the Centre d’Estudis d’Opinio which surveyed 1,500 people last month.