A sacristan was killed and a priest wounded during a suspected terrorist attack Wednesday on two Catholic churches in Spain.

The suspect is a 25-year-old Moroccan man who was due to be deported from the country, police said yesterday.

He was arrested on Wednesday evening after a machete attack on several people at the churches of San Isidro and Nuestra Senora de La Palma, around 300 metres (1,000 feet) apart, in the southern port city of Algeciras.

Police said they took the suspect to his home overnight for detectives to conduct a search.

He was expected to be transferred to the Spanish capital Madrid to appear before a High Court judge on terrorism charges at a time to be confirmed, police and court spokespeople said.

A police source denied local media reports that the suspect had been under surveillance by security operatives in the days or months before the attack.

Mayor José Antonio Landaluce said the attacker’s knife narrowly missed the priest’s spinal cord. “He lost a lot of blood, the stretcher was soaked with blood but if everything goes well he could be discharged today at the end of the day,” he told TVE.