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Barcelona Truck Attack Driver Arrested As Police Kill "Suspicious Person" Wearing Explosive Vest In Separate Operation

Update: Reuters reporst that according to Spanish police, they had "shot down" a person on Monday who appeared to be wearing an explosive belt and Spanish public television said the man was the suspected perpetrator of last week's Barcelona van attack. Catalan police declined to say if the man, shot in the area of Subirats, west of Barcelona, was dead or wounded.

Meanwhile, Spanish public television, citing sources close to the investigation, said the man who had been shot is Younes Abouyaaqoub, who police named earlier on Monday as the driver of the van that killed 13 people on the crowded boulevard of Las Ramblas in Barcelona last week.

This conflict with earlier reports that the 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub, was arrested on Monday in Sant Sadurni de Noya, west of Barcelona, according to Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia said.

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Shortly after Spain asked the rest of Europe to join the hunt for the young man suspected to have been the driver in last week's deadly van attack in Barcelona which killed 14 people and injured 120, Moroccan-born Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, who as police said on Monday also hijacked a car and killed its occupant during his escape, moments ago Spain's La Vanguardia newspaper reported that Abouyaaqoub has been arrested in an operation in an operation at Sant Sadurní d’Anoia just outside of Barcelona, reports La Vanguardia.

At the same time, Catalan police said that there was an "incident" underway in the town of Subirats, west of Bercelona, where a mean wearing an explosive belt was shot down in a separate operation. No arrests have been reported yet although there are media reports that one person was injured.

From Reuters:

  • CATALONIA POLICE SAYS "INCIDENT" UNDER WAY IN SUBIRATS, WEST OF BARCELONA
  • SPANISH RADIO CADENA SER SAYS MAN WEARING EXPLOSIVE BELT WAS SHOT DOWN IN SUBIRATS, WEST OF BARCELONA
  • SPANISH NEWSPAPER LA VANGUARDIA SAYS YOUNES ABOUYAAQOUB HAS BEEN ARRESTED

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, the mother of Abouyaaqoub, the man suspected of mowing down pedestrians in a van attack in Barcelona’s Las Ramblas tourist hotspot, killing 14 people and injuring 120, has called on her son to surrender to police.  Until the alleged arrest, the 22-year-old Moroccan was being hunted by police, and according to some media reports, had fled north into France.

Abouyaaqoub was the only person unaccounted for in the investigation into an extremist cell of 12 people identified by Spanish police, force spokesman Albert Oliva told a local radio station on Sunday. Catalan police had put up scores of roadblocks across the province in a manhunt for Abouyaaqoub, but the suspect has so far eluded law enforcement.

"This person is no longer just being sought in Catalonia but in all European countries, this is an effort by European police," Joaquim Forn, the Catalan interior minister, told Catalan radio. He confirmed that police were almost 100 percent certain Abouyaaqoub was the driver in the attack. "Everything points to that," Forn added, as cited by Reuters.

"We have no evidence that he crossed the border, we think it would not have been easy, but we cannot rule out that he didn't cross any border," Josep Lluis Trapero, head of the regional police in Catalonia, told a news conference on Monday. He added that the search for the suspect is currently the top priority.

On Monday, police also released photos of Abouyaaqoub, who is thought to have plowed the van into crowds in Barcelona last Thursday.

Source
Barcelona
Europe