Spain’s highest criminal court on Monday began the terrorism trial of a Moroccan man accused of carrying out machete attacks on two churches in 2023 that left one church official dead and shocked the nation.
Prosecutors are seeking a 50-year prison sentence for Yassine Kanjaa, who is charged with terrorist murder for allegedly killing a sacristan, and with attempted terrorist murder for additional assaults during the rampage in the southern port city of Algeciras, province of Cádiz (Andalusia). ALSO READ: Suspected terrorist attack at churches in Algeciras leaves one dead, four injured.
According to the 2024 indictment, on 25 January 2023 the defendant ‘took a large machete’ from his home in Algeciras before assaulting a 20-year-old student in the street. He then allegedly entered the San Isidro church while a mass was being held, attacking the 75-year-old priest and inflicting a deep neck wound.
Prosecutors say Kanjaa then went to another church, where he chased down a sacristan and killed him with repeated machete blows to the head and neck. The victim, they added, was married and the father of two children.
Kanjaa was arrested shortly afterwards when he tried and failed to enter a third church that was closed at the time.
In the months leading up to the attack, prosecutors claim, Kanjaa had ‘undergone a process of radicalisation, taking on board the most stringent Islamic theories which uphold its incompatibility with the principles and values of other religions and the need to act to eliminate them’.
Although medical assessments found that Kanjaa suffers from psychotic disorders and ‘probable’ schizophrenia, the prosecutor’s office stated that ‘the impairment of his intellectual and volitional faculties, although severe, was not complete’.
Before the attacks, Kanjaa had no prior criminal record. He had entered Spain irregularly and was already subject to expulsion proceedings.
The trial is being held at the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid, Spain’s top criminal court for terrorism cases, and is scheduled to continue until Wednesday. Eyewitnesses testified on Monday, while police officers and forensic experts are set to appear on Tuesday, and Kanjaa himself is expected to testify on Wednesday.
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Un testigo del ataque mortal con machete al sacristán de la iglesia de Nuestra Señora de La Palma, en Algeciras en enero de 2023, ha relatado la fijación que el acusado, Yassine Kanjaa, mostró en todo momento por su víctima y ha descrito que su presencia “era como un espectro”. pic.twitter.com/c1mHMaHNnx
— EFE Andalucía (@EFE_Andalucia) October 6, 2025
⚖️Primera sesión del juicio a Yassine Kanjaa, el presunto yihadista que en enero de 2023 asesinó al sacristán Diego valencia en Algeciras
— RTVEAndalucía (@RTVEAndalucia) October 6, 2025
◾️Han declarado varios testigos de los hechos que han coincidido en la fijación que el atacante tenía por la victima
🎙️@Lorcaprosa pic.twitter.com/isXFUuhNdz
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