A Spanish court on Monday opened a terrorism trial against a Moroccan man suspected of killing a church official in machete attacks on two churches in 2023 that horrified the country.

Prosecutors are seeking 50 years in jail for Yassine Kanjaa, charged with terrorist murder for allegedly killing a sacristan and with attempted terrorist murder after the attacks in the southern port city of Algeciras.

On January 25, 2023, the suspect “took a large machete” from his home in Algeciras and punched a 20-year-old student in the street, prosecutors said in their 2024 indictment.

He then allegedly entered the San Isidro church during a mass, badly wounding the officiating 75-year-old priest in the neck with the machete.

Prosecutors charge that Kanjaa then moved to a second church, chased a sacristan and killed him with machete blows to the head and neck. The victim was married and a father of two children.

Police arrested Kanjaa after he unsuccessfully attempted to enter a third church that was closed.

In the months before the attack, the suspect 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”, the prosecutors wrote.

Although Kanjaa has been diagnosed with psychotic disorders and “probable” schizophrenia, the public prosecutor’s office said “the impairment of his intellectual and volitional faculties, although severe, was not complete”.

Kanjaa, who had no criminal record before the attacks, had entered Spain irregularly and faced expulsion proceedings.

The trial is due to run until Wednesday at the Audiencia Nacional, Spain’s top criminal court which tries terrorism-related cases, with eyewitnesses testifying on Monday.

Police officers and forensics experts will give evidence on Tuesday, with Kanjaa due to take the stand on Wednesday.