Has terror van driver fled to France?
Manhunt for last Barcelona suspect who lived 20 miles from the border
THE driver of the van that caused carnage in Barcelona could have slipped over the French border, police admitted last night.
Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, is suspected of being at the wheel of the van that ploughed into pedestrians on Las Ramblas on Thursday, killing 13 and injuring 130, before fleeing on foot.
He is said to be the only member of a terror cell still at large – with four in custody, five killed in a police shootout in Cambrils, 70 miles from Barcelona, and two believed to have died in an explosion at a bomb factory.
Asked if Abouyaaqoub could have left Spain, Catalan police chief Josep Lluis Trapero said: ‘It cannot be ruled out.
‘If we knew that he was in Spain and where, we would go after him. We don’t know where he is.’
Eleven of the group are from Ripoll, 20 miles from the French border, while the other lived eight miles away. It has been alleged they were radicalised by imam Abdelbaki Es Satty, 45, who has links to a man jailed over the 2004 Madrid bombings that killed 192.
It is believed the imam – thought to have died in Wednesday’s explosion at a house in Alcanar, southwest of Barcelona – had links to France and spent three months in Belgium last year at the time that terror attacks rocked Brussels.
Papers with what appeared to be French names, phone numbers and email addresses were seen at Es Satty’s apartment in Ripoll after it was searched by police.
And the Audi used in the Cambrils attack was caught speeding in Paris in the days before the Barcelona atrocity, it was reported last night, strengthening the group’s links to France. It is believed its owner was Mohamed Aallaa, 27, who has been arrested.
Police put up roadblocks across north-east Spain yesterday while French officials carried out extra border checks. Meanwhile, a police document said group members Youssef Aallaa and Mohamed Hychami, who are both dead, had travelled to Zurich last December – raising the prospect that the terror cell reaches across Europe.
CCTV has emerged from a toll booth in Cambrils on the Sunday before the attack appearing to show the van used in the Ramblas attack and Aallaa’s Audi. The Fiat van has the same rental markings as the vehicle used in Barcelona.
Police said they had identified the remains of two people from the house that was razed in Alcanar. Detectives believe the suspects were using the building as a bomb factory in a bid to carry out one or more large-scale attacks – but after the explosion they rushed to use vehicles instead.
More than 100 butane gas cylinders were found at the house, as well as traces of triacetone triperoxide, a highly volatile explosive nicknamed ‘the mother of Satan’ that was favoured by militants in the Paris and Brussels attacks. Father-of-nine Es Satty is reported to have spent two years in prison in Castellon, eastern Spain, for trafficking hashish from Morocco.
Rachid Aglif – jailed for his role in the Madrid bombings – was in the prison at the same time, Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported.
Es Satty’s name is also said to have appeared in a report after five men were arrested south of Barcelona on charges of recruiting young men to fight in Iraq.
It is understood he moved to Ripoll on his release from prison, working at the Al Fath mosque before being asked to leave because of concern about his teachings. On his return from Belgium, Es Satty became imam of the Annour Islamic Community.
It is understood he was last seen on Tuesday, when he told his flatmate he was going to Morocco.
Hechami Gasi, father of Mohamed and Omar Hychami, who were killed in Cambrils in the early hours of Friday, said: ‘They’re my sons but look at the evil they’ve done. The imam must have put these ideas in their heads. They were good boys.’
One man, known only as Mounir, 27, who worships at the mosque, said: ‘They were young. It looks like they have been radicalised only in the last few months.’