Barcelona van attackers plotted major bombings, Spanish court hears

An Islamist militant cell that last week used a van to kill 13 people in Barcelona had planned one or several major bomb attacks, possibly against churches or monuments, one suspect told a court on Aug. 22, according to sources close to the investigation.

They said the group was led by an imam who tutored its members, mainly young Moroccans, in jihad (holy war) and told them "martyrdom is a good thing, according to the Koran," Mohamed Houli Chemlal told a Spanish High Court judge.

The cell was preparing bombs for an imam who planned to blow himself up at a Barcelona monument.

After a day-long hearing of four suspects in the plot, Judge Fernando Andreu late on Tuesday ordered Chemlal and a second defendant, Driss Oukabir, remanded on charges of membership of a terrorist group and murder. Chemlal was also charged with explosives possession.

A third suspect, Salh El Karib, who ran an internet cafe in a northeastern Spanish town where most of the alleged members of the cell lived, will remain in police custody for now pending further investigation. The fourth man, Mohamed Aalla, was released on certain conditions.

Chemlal was the only one of the four suspects who admitted a role in the plot, the sources said. The other three all denied involvement.

Police on Aug. 21 shot dead 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub, whom they had identified as the driver of the van that careered along the packed Las Ramblas promenade in Barcelona last Thursday, killing 13 people and injuring 120 others from 34 countries.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the van attack and a separate deadly assault, hours later, in the coastal resort of Cambrils, south of Barcelona.

In Cambrils, a car...