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Barcelona attack suspect shot dead by police; toll rises to 15

BARCELONA — The fugitive who was behind the terrorist attacks last week in Spain was shot dead by police officers yesterday afternoon in a village about 20 miles (32.2km) west of Barcelona, the police announced.

Police officers during an operation in Subirats yesterday. Regional police said officers shot a man wearing an explosive belt and later announced the man was fugitive Younes Abouyaaqoub. Photo: AP

Police officers during an operation in Subirats yesterday. Regional police said officers shot a man wearing an explosive belt and later announced the man was fugitive Younes Abouyaaqoub. Photo: AP

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BARCELONA — The fugitive who was behind the terrorist attacks last week in Spain was shot dead by police officers yesterday afternoon in a village about 20 miles (32.2km) west of Barcelona, the police announced.

The fugitive, Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, used a van to mow down a crowd on Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s most famous boulevard, on Thursday afternoon, killing 13 people, according to the police.

He then stole a car, killed its driver and made his getaway, with the driver’s body still inside.

A manhunt stretching across Europe was undertaken, and France, Italy and other countries tightened security and border controls amid widespread speculation that Abouyaaqoub might have fled Spain; over the weekend, the authorities said they could not be certain that he was still on Spanish soil.

But at 4.10pm yesterday, attention quickly turned to Subirats, a collection of villages about 30km west of Barcelona. The town was placed on lockdown as the authorities announced that a man wearing an explosive belt had been “shot down”.

The identity of the suspect was not clear for about two hours; a robot, operated by a police bomb squad, was going through the explosive device to ensure that there was no danger. But at 6.20pm, the police announced that the man who had been shot was indeed Abouyaaqoub.

Residents of Subirats appeared frightened but unharmed.

“They told us to keep inside, to be ready for anything,” Mr Pere Pons, the mayor of Subirats, told Catalonian radio. “A little while ago the police called us to stay in our houses. To keep calm, to wait for more police to arrive.”

He added: “The entire town is surrounded by police.”

Local media said the man was spotted by a woman in the early afternoon and then fled through vineyards but police managed to find and shoot him on a road near a sewage treatment plant.

The death toll from the attacks rose to 15 yesterday. In addition to the 13 people killed in the van attack in Barcelona, a 14th person died hours later in a related attack in the town of Cambrils, and the police yesterday announced a 15th victim: The driver of a car that Abouyaaqoub stole and used to make his escape.

Abouyaaqoub had been the only one of 12 accomplices still at large. His mother, Hannou Ghanimi, had appealed for him to surrender, saying she would rather see him in prison than end up dead.

Four people have been arrested so far in connection with the attacks: Three Moroccans and a citizen of Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla. They will be taken to the high court in Madrid, which has jurisdiction over terrorism matters.

Abouyaaqoub lived in Ripoll, a town north of Barcelona close to French border. Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the Barcelona attack as well as the assault hours later in Cambrils, south of Barcelona.

In Cambrils, a car crashed into passersby and its occupants got out and tried to stab people. Five suspects were shot dead by police, while a Spanish woman died in the attack.

Authorities also said yesterday that an imam believed to have inspired the twin attacks had almost certainly died Wednesday when a house that the terrorists used as a bomb factory blew up — an event that appears to have precipitated the attacks.

The imam, Abdelbaki Essati, preached in the town of Ripoll, home to many of the members of the terrorist cell. Investigators believe that the planning for the plot may have begun not long after Essati’s arrival, a year ago, at the second of two mosques where he worked in Ripoll.

The remains of two people were found at the house where the explosion took place, in the town of Alcanar, south of Barcelona.

Major Josep Llus Trapero, police chief in the Catalonia region, of which Barcelona is the capital, defended the level of police surveillance before the attacks, the most serious since 2004, when terrorists bombed commuter trains in Madrid, killing 192 people.

The country has avoided major acts of jihadi terrorism since then, even as the IS group and other extremists struck other cities across Europe.

Mr Trapero said it would be “playing dirty” to accuse the police of lapses, and said the police never received information that would have justified acting against members of the cell.

Asked why nobody had raised the alarm in Alcanar, as terrorists stored over 100 gas cylinders in their bomb-making house, Mr Trapero said: “We have to be cautious not to criminalise the ones who didn’t see or act.”

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