Spanish terror cell fugitive killed
Flashed fake suicide belt at police in vineyard near Barcelona
SUBIRATS, Spain — The lone fugitive from the Spanish cell that killed 15 people in and near Barcelona was shot to death Monday after he flashed what turned out to be a fake suicide belt at two troopers who confronted him in a vineyard just outside the city he terrorized, authorities said.
Police said they had “scientific evidence” that Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, drove the van that barrelled through Barcelona’s crowded Las Ramblas promenade, killing 13 people on Thursday, then hijacked a car and fatally stabbed its driver while making his getaway.
Abouyaaqoub’s brother and friends made up the rest of the 12-man extremist cell, along with an imam who police said died in a botched bomb-making operation.
After four days on the run, Abouyaaqoub was spotted outside a train station about 52 kilometres west of Barcelona on Monday afternoon. A second witness told police she was certain she had seen the man whose photo has gone around the world as part of an international manhunt.
Two officers found him hiding in a nearby vineyard and asked for his identification, according to the head of the Catalan police. He was shot to death when he opened his shirt to reveal what looked to be explosives and cried out “God is great” in Arabic, regional police chief Josep Luis Trapero said.
A bomb disposal robot was dispatched to examine the downed suspect before police determined the bomb belt was not real, Trapero said. A bag full of knives was found with his body, police said.
With Abouyaaqoub’s death, the group responsible for last week’s fatal van attacks has now been broken, Trapero said.
“The arrest of this person was the priority for the police because it closed the detention and dismantling of the group that we had identified,” he said.
Four are under arrest, and eight are dead: five shot by police in the seaside town of Cambrils, where a second van attack left one pedestrian dead early Friday; two others killed on the eve of the Barcelona attack in a botched bomb-making operation; and Abouyaaqoub.
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for both the Cambrils and Barcelona attacks.
Roser Ventura, whose father owns a vineyard between the towns of Sadurni d’Anoia and Subirats, said she alerted the regional Catalan police when they spotted a car crossing their property at high speed.
“The police told us to leave the premises and go home. We heard a helicopter flying around and many police cars coming toward the gas station that is some 600 metres from the property,” Ventura said.
The search for Abouyaaqoub ended on the same day that Catalan police confirmed that he was the last remaining cell member thought to still be at large and provided a timeline of his movements.
Authorities said earlier Monday they had evidence that pinpointed Abouyaaqoub as the driver of the van that plowed down the Las Ramblas promenade, killing 13 pedestrians and injuring more than 120 others.
Trapero said that after abandoning the vehicle, Abouyaaqoub walked through Barcelona for about 90 minutes, through the famed La Boqueria market and nearly to Barcelona University.
The Spanish newspaper El Pais published images Monday of what it said was Abouyaaqoub leaving the van attack site on foot. The three images show a slim man wearing sunglasses walking through La Boqueria.
In a parking lot often used by university students, he then hijacked a Ford Focus belonging to Pau Perez, stabbing Perez to death and taking the wheel with his final victim’s body in the back seat. Minutes later, Abouyaaqoub plowed through a police checkpoint with the stolen car and abandoned the vehicle, disappearing into the night.
The manhunt for him reached well beyond Spain’s borders, but in the end, Abouyaaqoub died about 30 kilometres from where he was last spotted.
After the carnage in Barcelona, authorities took a closer look at an explosion the night before in a house south of the city. Police initially had dismissed it as a household accident.
Along with two bodies, the more exhaustive search turned up remnants of more than 100 butane gas tanks and materials needed for the TATP explosive, which has been used previously by Islamic State militants.
The equipment, along with reports that Abouyaaqoub had rented three vans, suggested the militant cell was making plans for an even more massive attack on the city.