Chakir Achatoui, 24 years old, traveled the 40.5 kilometers separating Tetouan from Ceuta and, on July 30, touched the dream of returning to Spanish territory that had kept him standing for eight years. He entered by sea near the El Tarajal border crossing like thousands of other Moroccans and celebrated victory. He celebrated victory almost as loudly and with as much rage as he had shown his enormous anger eight years earlier. At that time, the Spanish authorities expelled him along with his twin brother Chakib, their parents, and sister, along with the entire family, ultimately considering them a danger to national security due to their links to jihadism.
A few days later, the National Police’s facial recognition system identified his features and the young man was located and immediately expelled as, so far, thirteen other men with records of Islamist radicalization have been, who took advantage of the enormous human wave that invaded Ceuta and questioned national integrity to return to the country from which they were once expelled.
According to police sources, those expelled have committed crimes, but they do not pose a high degree of danger nor do their records have anything to do with carrying out or preparing attacks. This does not prevent their identities from being kept low-profile at the informational level to avoid increasing tension in the European sphere. With Italy, after the measures adopted by Giorgia Meloni’s government suspending the Schengen free movement agreement and extending border controls on travelers coming from Spain. And with France, which, despite its more courteous manners, has increased border control and even considered closing them.
THE DEAD BROTHER
Chakir Achatoui was born in Morocco, but his parents moved him along with the whole family to Badalona precisely when their attempts to settle in France were unsuccessful because the neighboring country did not accept them. When the twins were still 15 years old, the mother, Rhimou Ben Youssef, who exercised authority in the family, allowed a recruiter to take them to their country of origin to indoctrinate them. She claimed she wanted to save them from school failure, but the truth is the family hid the precedent of having allowed their eldest son to go fight in Syria enrolled in the ranks of the radical Islamist group Ahrar Al Sham.
Chakir would later claim that he was not seduced by jihadist chants to avenge the death of his brother, whom he said he barely knew, but the truth is that, at home, the memory of the dead was kept as if he were a hero and the mother, with more than haughty, arrogant manners, was careful to highlight the 900 euros that jihadists paid to the widow.
Police recordings of Ben Youssef in conversation with her indoctrinator show that she was only worried that the jihadists planned to take them to Syria at 16 years old, not that her children were heading straight to death. In the words of Elcano Institute researcher Álvaro Vicente, “Salafist parents understand parenthood as a form of activism.” The intervention of the Civil Guard thwarted the horrible fate the mother had prepared for them and Chakib and Chakir spent 18 months in a Madrid juvenile center whose officials acknowledged to this supplement that, much to their fear, they remained radicalized at the end of the treatment.
MARGINAL RELATIONSHIP WITH EXTREMISM
Upon arrival, they covered their ears to avoid listening to music because it was sinful for Islam and refused to talk to “Spanish and infidel” women. They gradually relaxed; in fact, they cried bitterly before one of the social workers when they became aware of the fate their mother had destined for them. However, the experts who treated them were convinced that they had actually learned tricks to manipulate the system.
Upon leaving, they went straight to live with their mother again, behaved like stars, and used the services of an NGO to collect 200 euros for each public intervention with the corresponding scandal from the Prosecutor’s Office. Chakir then explained: “If someone comes and tells you: ‘Look, explode a bomb, and you will get millions,’ you will go and explode it.” So, given the risk the entire family posed, and since they did not have Spanish nationality, they were expelled in May 2018.
They returned to Tetouan, the same city where they had been radicalized. The family told Crónica that Chakir had a job and money, but the truth is that he was already accumulating anger and studying ways to return.
Security Forces consulted by Crónica assure that none of those expelled for violating the prohibition to enter national territory had previously been involved in any serious procedure. “They have records and a marginal relationship with extremism,” they specify. They also highlight the vast differences that can be detected compared to entries through Lesbos, for example, where those entering had a terrorist objective. “There is more risk among those who may arrive little by little, in trickles, after setting as a goal reaching Europe, than in this absolutely massive and practically improvised way,” says an expert in the fight against jihadism, emphasizing control of the situation.
For her part, Hanan Serroukh, an activist who was coordinator of the Islamic Studies Area of GEES, requests special care in analyzing the characteristics of those who have been expelled because, she explains, jihadist groups send back to Europe the indoctrinators they cannot use in the Maghreb due to the different characteristics of Algerian and Moroccan activists compared to Europeans.
In any case, Chakir Achatoui has seen his effort to return to Spain frustrated by the Police. And with him, thirteen other men once radicalized.
