The Court of the Contentious-Administrative number 2 of Castellón annulled in March of 2015 a deportation order against Abdelbaki es Satty, an imam of Ripoll and presumed mastermind behind the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, who died in the explosion of the house at Alcanar.
The court made this decision because of Es Satty's "developing roots" and "his effort to integrate", after serving a sentence of four years in prison for drug trafficking, dictated by a Ceuta court a few years before. State lawyers, representing the subdelegation of the Spanish government, did not appeal the judicial decision.
The judge of Castellón considered that Satty, a long-term resident, had demonstrated "obvious labor connections and efforts to integrate" through the accreditation of a valid work contract and accompanying listed term for Social Security, 6 years, 6 months and 16 days. The ruling also argues the age of the crime's commission, which took place in January 2010, and the fact that it was a single criminal act in an otherwise spotless record.
The judge refused to close the deportation proceedings due to expired or irregularities in notification requirements, as Se Satty sought, but determined that the automatic deportation for having served more than one year in prison, as requested by State prosecutors, violated the principle of proportionality brought in by recent legal doctrine.
In particular, the judge applied the new State and European jurisprudential doctrine, according to which the expulsion of a long-term resident alien sentenced by a crime punished with a penalty exceeding one year in prison is not automatic anymore. It is necessary to assess the specific circumstances of each case and determine that there is a "real and sufficiently serious threat to public order or public safety."
The judge is based on "strong European case law", as reported by the High Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV), with references to resolutions of the Spanish Supreme Court, the Spanish Constitutional Court, and the High Courts of Justice of Castile And Leon, the Basque Country, Cantabria, and the Provincial Court of Biscay, among others.
In the resolution, the magistrate explains that "although the imputed conduct is serious, one can not ignore that we are facing a single distant criminal act in time - it's been over five years since its commission - while the presented documentation proves that he has obvious roots in Spain, which demonstrate his efforts to integrate into Spanish society, which is why I understand that [deportation due to] a single criminal act along with the rest of the exposed circumstances violates the principle of proportionality".
Abdelbaki es Satty was sentenced by in February 2012 by the Criminal Court number two from Ceuta to four years in prison for a drug trafficking offence he committed on January 1, 2010, according to the TSJCV. The same source indicates that he had no other conviction. In the judicial file, he adds, there is no information regarding his links to Islamist terrorism.
