Driss Oukabir, the number 2 and “lieutenant” of the imam of Ripoll

At least two of the private accusations in the 17-A trial consider that Driss Oukabir was the number 2 of Ripoll’s jihadist cell, the “lieutenant”, behind Imam Abdelbaki se Satty. In addition, the lawyer for the family of Xavi Martínez, a child who died on the Rambla, has reproached the prosecution for having done more “state than prosecution”, and has not accused him of collaborating with murder. According to him, all the members of the cell had foreseen the abuses, including Oukabir and Mohamed Houli, the other main court in the National Court.

The lawyer Agustí Carles has argued that Mohamed Houli and Driss Oukabir can be held responsible for the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils. This accusation asks that they be convicted not only for belonging to a terrorist organization but also for the crime of death by terrorism.

Carles has defended that “responsibility must be attributed to them” although it can be “modulated” because they were not the material authors. Carles has affirmed that these are “multi-person crimes”, since they had the pretense that “together we will get to kill.” Carles explained that while the ETA attacks were directed at police or political bodies, the jihadists are indiscriminate, because the victims are “instruments against the state and the entire Western society.”

“The prosecution has done more of the State than of the prosecution,” Carles has reproached, on the accusation of the public prosecutor, of whom he has lamented that “he has forgotten the victims of the Rambla and Cambrils”. The lawyer has remarked that the members of the cell wanted to “disturb the public peace and cause terror” by any means.

In this sense, the prosecution defends that days before the attacks “everything was open” and “all the possibilities were discussed”, including the massive abuses. Thus, he recalled that the jihadists tried to rent SUVs, which Daesh recommends to carry out massive outrages. In addition, they also did research on the Internet about knives and firearms. The possibility of a massive hit-and-run was “talked about” and that is why it was the second option, decided quickly after the Alcanar explosion on August 16.

Of the ten members of the cell, six ended up doing massive outrages, the lawyer recalled. In fact, he believes that the Cambrils jihadists made the decision to do the same thing that Younes Abouyaqoub had done on the Rambla when they found that he had left and had been able to escape from the police.

The indictment claims that Driss Oukabir, the second main defendant, was an “important member of the cell” and has described him as the “right hand” and “lieutenant” of Ripoll’s imam, Abdelbaki Se-Satty. “He was as discreet as he,” he said, and also maintains that they coincided on a trip to Morocco. “When the cell was blocked, they went in search of Driss,” Carles insisted. For the lawyer, the fact that Oukabir could be unmarked at the last moment, was not due to doubts about the commission of the attacks, but about the fact that he did not want to die and if the others except him did, the police would discover that he had rented the vehicles.

Regarding Mohamed Houli, the main defendant, the prosecution has remarked that his statements to the police are a “ceremony of confusion” and does not provide elements that allow the attacks to be stopped. They have also affirmed that Houli participated from the beginning, in 2016 -not from Ramadan of 2017- and was “with the group of greats”, that is, Younes Abouyaaqoub, Youssef Aalla and Mohamed Hichamy and not of the youngest, who got involved later.

The lawyer of a girl injured on the Rambla has also described Oukabir as a “lieutenant”, recalling that he took many security and counter-surveillance measures and was in charge of renting the van on the Rambla. To argue the guilt of Oukabir and Houli as collaborators of the attacks and, therefore, also jointly responsible for the murders, the lawyer has said that the explosion at Alcanar’s house changed the initial plans to attack the Camp Nou and the Sagrada Familia with explosives, but the decision that was taken then was “collegiate by action or omission.” “None of them did anything to prevent the attacks on La Rambla or Cambrils,” he added. This lawyer has also questioned that Se Satty died in the Alcanar explosion.

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