News / EU / Editor's Choice

Spain identifies fugitive suspect in Barcelona attack

Monday, 21 August 2017 9:47 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 21 August 2017 10:27 AM ]

Video grabs from CCTV footage, realesed by El Pais, purportedly show Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, walking through La Boqueria market, wearing sunglasses, as he passes other people heading away from Las Ramblas.

Spanish authorities say they have identified the driver of a van that smashed into crowds of people in Barcelona and killed over a dozen of them, amid an ongoing manhunt across the country for the suspect believed to be of Moroccan origin.

The Catalan region’s Interior Minister Joaquim Forn said in an interview with Catalunya Radio on Monday that 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub, who is at large in Spain or abroad, is now the final target of the manhunt which has been underway since Thursday’s attack in Barcelona.

Forn said that “everything indicates” that Abouyaaqoub was the driver of the van that drove through Barcelona’s emblematic Las Ramblas promenade on Thursday, killing 13 pedestrians and injuring over 120 more.

22-year-old Moroccan Younes Abouyaaqoub, who is believed to be the driver of the van involved in the deadly Barcelona attack

He is the last of a 12-member terrorist cell linked to last week’s twin attacks in Barcelona and the seaside resort of Cambrils. Other members of the ring have been killed or detained by police forces during the manhunt.

The Cambrils attack also saw a car hit pedestrians on the same day, leaving one person dead and several more injured.

The Takfiri Daesh terror group claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Abouyaaqoub was earlier suspected to be the lone attacker in Las Ramblas, Barcelona, but authorities had not confirmed his identity because they were having difficulty identifying the remains of at least one of two terrorists, who died in an explosion on Wednesday at a house where explosives were being made.

A picture taken on August 19, 2017 shows the living room of Younes Abouyaaqoub, one of the suspects of the Barcelona and Cambrils attacks, at the home in Ripolll, a Catalan town near the French border, 100 kilometers north of Barcelona. (Via AFP)

“It’s obvious that the person who committed the van attack can’t be dead because the explosion happened before the attack in Las Ramblas,” Forn said.

The Catalan government also said Madrid was formally notifying European police of the driver’s so that the authorities could start a continent-wide search.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk