Taunting terrorist shot dead with gang on seafront
THE young women ran for their lives, diving for cover into the Beach Point seafront bar. On the street outside a terrorist, seemingly with a suicide belt strapped to his chest and wielding a knife, sauntered past. Police were taking pot shots at him.
Fitzroy Davies, a judo instructor from Wolverhampton, who had been enjoying a meal in the bar, pulled out his mobile phone and instinctively began filming what he would later describe as a “horror movie”.
About a minute earlier and 400 yards away, a police officer, who some eyewitnesses said was a woman, had shot dead four of the jihadist’s accomplices despite being outnumbered by them, in a remarkable act of bravery.
Last night, several reports cited police as confirming that one of those shot dead in Cambrils was 17-year-old Moussa Oukabir, the prime suspect in the Barcelona massacre. Amid a confused response, however, a senior officer later cautioned he could still be alive and at large.
Catalonia’s regional police also said that terror suspects Said Aallaa, 18, and Mohamed Hychami, 24, had been shot dead in Cambrils alongside two others.
Four other suspects were in custody. Police were still searching for Younes Abouyaaqoub, aged 22, last night.
French officials were looking for a van rented by the terror suspects that may have crossed the border into France.
At the beginning of the 64-second video, four gun shots can be heard and the terrorist collapses to the ground. The attacker staggers back up, ignoring the police shouts to get back down. At one point he begins laughing at them and taunting them. A further six shots can be heard before the attacker finally falls to the ground a second time. His death yesterday brought to an end the terrorist attack on the seaside resort of Cambrils.
The incident at Cambrils, 60 miles south of Barcelona, began at 1.30am local time when an Audi A3 car was seen speeding into the town.
Inside the car were five jihadists. Strapped to their waists were fake suicide belts; they were armed with machetes, axes and knives.
The car reached the seafront promenade besides the Cambrils Yacht Club, where police had been stationed to guard tourists at the bars and restaurants that line the strip.
The Audi ploughed into pedestrians, injuring up to four people. The car then tried to mount a kerb but in doing so flipped into the air and landed on its roof. One report said it had first collided with a police car before careering out of control. The terrorists crawled out the car, brandishing their weapons. One officer from the police car suffered a broken leg and a head wound. His colleague, reacting with lightning speed, pulled out her pistol and shot four of the terrorists dead. The officer was last night being called a hero. “To kill four people, even if you are a professional, is not easy to digest,” said Josep Luis Trapero, a Catalan police chief. The fifth attacker – captured on Fitzroy Davies’s camera phone – fled the scene. He stabbed a 63-year-old woman from Zaragoza in the neck, who later died from her injuries. Two family members were also injured before officers in plain clothes caught up with him.
Mr Davies, who had been at a training camp with eight other judo coaches, recorded the events as they
unfolded. He said: “We were at the beach bar having something to eat when some girls ran in with fear on their faces and I saw people running down the street. I got up and saw a guy standing on the grass about 25ft away. He had something that looked silvery over his body which could have been a suicide vest and was holding something.
“Around 30 seconds later four officers jumped out of a car and came between me and him. They had their guns drawn and were shouting at the guy; that is when I knew this was for real. The next thing there were about 10 shots, crack, crack, crack, like a pop gun and he fell to the ground, but two seconds later he stood back up again and stepped over a fence on to the street and came at the police.”
He added: “They were backing off and he was smiling as he charged towards them. He was behaving strangely like he was on drugs, ranting and raving as he went up and down the street. Then they fired again and he fell. This time he stayed down.”
Mr Davies likened the scene to “a horror film”, adding: “Particularly when he jumped back up after being shot and started laughing at the police. I can’t get that out of my mind.”
Police in Cambrils said they could not be certain whether the attackers had come from outside the beach town or had a base there.
‘There were about 10 shots, crack, crack, crack, and he fell to the ground, but two seconds later he stood back