Police gun down Barcelona butcher
BARCELONA terrorist Younes Abouyaaqoub is dead, gunned down by police after they cornered him in a Spanish vineyard as he shouted “Allah Akbar’’ and rushed at them wearing a fake explosive belt.
Moroccan-born Abouyaaqoub, 22, was caught outside the town of Subirats, four days after he drove a speeding van through crowds on the Las Ramblas promenade, killing 13 people including Australian boy Julian Cadman, 7, and wounding more than 120 others.
His death meant eight of the 12-strong Islamic State terror cell behind the attacks were dead, with police confirming suspected mastermind, Salafism imam Abdelbaki Es Satty, had been killed in an accidental blast at the cell’s bomb factory in Alcanar on Wednesday.
Abouyaaqoub’s brother Houssaine is also dead after being shot by police at a second attack in the seaside town of Cambrils, eight hours after the van strike at Barcelona.
Their grandfather, Aqbouch Abouyaaqoub, 80, apologised for their actions and said it was against Morocco’s culture.
“One thing is for sure, my grandson was not radicalised here [in Morocco], he was brainwashed in Spain,’’ he told Spanish newspaper El Pais.
The death toll from the attacks has risen to 15 after police confirmed Younes Abouyaaqoub killed another man, Spanish citizen Pau Perez, 35, when he hijacked his car as he made his getaway from the carnage at Las Ramblas.
Another woman died at Cambrils when the group rammed a crowd and attacked them with knives, before police shot all five attackers dead.
Police had launched a Europe-wide manhunt for Abouyaaqoub after he man- aged to escape from Las Ramblas, but in the end he was caught just 60km away, after a winery owner saw a car speeding across his private land, outside the town of Subirats.
Police agency Mossos tweeted their thanks to the unidentified person last night, writing: “Our gratitude to the citizen x the decisive collaboration in the operation of Subirats.
“You are an important piece to fight terrorism,” they tweeted.
“The 12 initial targets regarding the attacks are dead or detained but that does not mean that the investigation is over. We keep working.”
Abouyaaqoub had twice evaded police, firstly when he fled the van, and secondly when he used Mr Perez’s car to ram through a roadblock, but his luck ran out at 4.40pm Monday Barcelona time. The dead men are: the Abouyaaqoub brothers, preacher Es Satty, Moussa Oukabir, 17, and Said Aallaa, 19, both shot dead at Cambrils, brothers Mohamed and Omar Hychami, also shot dead at Cambrils, and Youssef Aallaa, believed killed in the blast at Alcanar.
The four men arrested arrived in Madrid ahead of a court hearing.
They are Mohamed Houli Chemlal, who survived the explosion in Alcanar and is alleged to be the group’s bombmaker, Salah El Karib, the owner of an internet cafe in Ripoll, the town where most of the dead terrorists lived, Mohamed Aalaa, brother of Said and owner of the car used in the attack at Cambrils, and Driss
Oukabir, older brother of Moussa, whose documents were used to rent the van used at Las Ramblas.
Meanwhile, an appeal to assist the family of Sydney boy Julian Cadman and his mother Jumarie, known as Jom, had raised more than $113,000.
Jom remains in a serious condition in a Barcelona hospital after she and Julian were run down on Las Ramblas. Her husband Andrew Cadman is by her side.
Andrew’s boss Scott Bowman wrote on a GoFundMe fundraising page that the financial support was good news for a family that desperately needed help.
“On behalf of the family they are overwhelmed with the generosity so far,’’ he said.