The fugitive member of the Barcelona terror Jihadist cell Younes Abouyaaqoub [photo], was shot dead by Spanish police on Monday Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, was wearing an apparent explosives belt and shouted “Allahu akbar” as police surrounded him in ia vineyard in Subirats, a village about 37 miles outside Barcelona, local media reported.
“They have shot dead a suspect who could be the perpetrator of the attack,” a source close to the probe told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The Moroccan national had been identified as the driver of the van that plowed into pedestrians on Barcelona’s popular La Ramblas promenade on Thursday.
The Spanish newspaper La Va nguardia said Catalonia’s Mossos d’Esquadra police shot the suspect, while Catalan public radio reported that a bomb-disposal robot has removed possible explosives from the terrorist’s body.
Younes Abouyaaqoub’s mid afternoon vehicular terrorist assault on Barcelona’s tourist district left chaos and carnage in it’s wake
The daughter of a vineyard owner said her dad alerted authorities after they saw a car crossing their property at high speed even though the vineyard was closed off.
Roser Venura said police told them to immediately leave the Ventura Soler cava vineyard, located between the towns of Sadurni d’Anoia and Subirats.
“We heard a helicopter flying around and many police cars coming toward the gas station” near the property, she said.
Police said Abouyaaqoub fled Las Ramblas on foot amid the pandemonium after the carnage, then hijacked a Ford Focus after stabbing its driver, Pau Perez, 34, to death and then crashing through as Spanish police shot at him at a checkpoint.
Perez’s body was found in the back seat of abandoned the car in Sant Just Desvern outside Barcelona on Friday.
Younes Abouyaaqoub driving this rental van photo], deliberately zig-zagged through a crowded Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Thursday killing 14 and injuring 120. He fled on foot before killing a motorist and hijacking his car to claim his 15th victim
Abouyaaqoub – who lived in Ripoll, a town north of Barcelona close to French border — had been the only one of 12 accomplices still at large.
His mother, Hannou Ghanimi, had appealed for him to surrender, saying she would rather see him in prison than end up dead.
Four people have been arrested so far in the twin attacks, three Moroccans and a citizen of Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Barcelona and the coastal resort town of Cambrils, where a car crashed into passers-by and its occupants got out and tried to stab people.
Five suspects were shot dead by cops while a Spanish woman died in the attack.
Of the 120 injured on Las Ramblas, nine remain hospitalized in critical condition. One of the injured victims died Friday from her injuries.
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