Mother pleads with her son to hand himself in

The mother of the jihadi suspected of driving a van into hundreds of pedestrians on the Ramblas yesterday called on her son to hand himself in.

Moroccan-born Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, is Spain’s most wanted man and the subject of an international manhunt.

Police searching him as part of Operation Cage believe he may have fled the scene of the attack on the Barcelona Metro.

His mother Ghanno Gaanimi told reporters: “He must go to the police, he must hand himself in. He is better off in prison than being dead. It’s wrong to kill people. I am not to blame for this.”

Abouyaaqoub was born in Mrirt, a town of 35,000 people between Rabat and Fez in Morocco.

But he moved to Ripoll, the sleepy town in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees that has become the centre of the police investigation.

There he became friends with other members of the cell including Moussa Oukabir, 17, who is thought to have been shot dead in Cambrils in the early hours of Friday.

Abouyaaqoub attended school in the town, which has a population of 11,000, around 500 of whom come from Morocco.