BARCELONA ‘FUGITIVE’ SHOT DEAD BY COPS
Suspected van driver who killed 15 found in village 60km from city
BARCELONA
POLICE yesterday shot dead a man who could be Younes Abouyaaqoub, the suspected driver of a van that mowed down pedestrians here amid a massive manhunt for the Moroccan national described as dangerous and likely armed.
“They have shot dead a suspect who could be the perpetrator of the attack,” said a source close to the probe.
Regional police confirmed a man wearing what appeared to be a suicide belt had been killed in Subirats, a village 60km from here.
Bomb disposal units have been dispatched to the site.
Earlier, police had launched an appeal for information about the 22-year-old fugitive, believed to be the last remaining member of a 12-man cell suspected of plotting last week's deadly attacks.
The other suspects have been killed by police or detained.
Authorities yesterday raised the death toll to 15, confirming that Pau Perez, a 34-year-old man found stabbed to death in a Ford Focus outside here on Friday, was killed by Abouyaaqoub.
The police had fired at the car as it forced its way through a checkpoint shortly after the Barcelona carnage, and later found Perez in the vehicle.
Investigators believe the victim was the owner of the car, which was hijacked by Abouyaaqoub to make his getaway.
Describing Abouyaaqoub as around 1.8m tall, police tweeted four photographs of the man with short black hair, including three pictures in which he was wearing a black and white striped T-shirt.
He is “dangerous and could be armed”, police in Catalonia said.
Spanish authorities were also officially notifying European police of the identity of the suspect to enable the launch of a Europewide manhunt. AFP Cheerleaders using solar viewing glasses before welcoming guests to the football stadium to watch the total solar eclipse at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, yesterday. A total solar eclipse is sweeping across the United States for the first time in 99 years. The ‘Great American Eclipse’, as it is being called, will move diagonally across the country, northwest to southeast, providing a spectacular solar show.