Barcelona van attack driver shot dead by police
Monday, August 21, 2017 @ 8:59 PM
THE terrorist who drove a hired van into crowds on Las Ramblas in Barcelona killing 13 people has been shot dead in the town of Altos de Subirat after threatening police with activating a suicide belt.
Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, was surrounded by the Mossos d'Esquadra – Catalunya's armed police – at around 16.30 today (Monday) and displayed a bomb waistcoat whilst shouting Allah-u Akbar, meaning 'God is great'.
Officers opened fire and he was killed instantly.
Photographs of Abouyaaqoub distributed via the media and calling for the public to give any information they could leading to his whereabouts bore fruit when a woman in the village of Subirats raised the alarm, believing she had seen him in the area.
Realising the police were on his trail, Abouyaaqoub fled into nearby vineyards, but was swiftly surrounded.
He has been identified as the driver who killed 13 people and injured 132 on the Ramblas before dumping the van and vanishing into the Boquería Market.
Abouyaaqoub has since been named as the man who ploughed into police at a checkpoint in Sant Just Desvern just outside Barcelona later that same night, injuring a female officer.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com