Police shoot dead van driver responsible for Barcelona terror attack
Police have shot dead the 22-year-old Moroccan behind the Barcelona terror attack.
Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, was gunned down by officers and appeared to be wearing what looked like a suicide belt.
The Moroccan was cornered in Subirats, about 30 miles west of Barcelona, on Monday.
Thirteen people were killed in the attack in Las Ramblas in Barcelona on Thursday night, including seven-year-old British boy Julian Cadman.
Joaquim Forn, head of home affairs in Catalonia’s regional government, said earlier on Monday that “everything indicates” Abouyaaqoub was behind the wheel.
Abouyaaqoub, who fled the scene on foot, was believed to be the only at-large member of the 12-strong terror cell behind the attacks in Barcelona and the seaside town of Cambrils.
Police have revealed that he stole a car and killed its owner as he made his getaway after fleeing the carnage in Las Ramblas on foot.
The death toll from the two attacks rose to 15 on Monday when a second victim of the Cambrils attack died in hospital.
Police revealed on Monday that Abouyaaqoub walked around Barcelona for about 90 minutes after the van attack before hijacking a Ford Focus, stabbing its owner, Pau Perez, and driving away with his body still inside.
Abouyaaqoub rammed the car through a police checkpoint on Friday night then dumped the vehicle two miles away but he had fled by the time police found it with Mr Perez’s body stills inside.
Four other suspects have been arrested and at least two extremists died on Wednesday in an explosion at a house in Alcanar, where explosives were being prepared.
Police believe the explosion in Alcanar prevented the terror cell from carrying out what would have been a far deadlier attack.
Police are reportedly probing claims the cell was radicalised by an imam with links to the Madrid train bombers and an area in Belgium known as a hotspot for Islamic State recruiting.
