(Newswire.net — invalid date) –The probable driver of the van that killed 15 people on Barcelona’s Ramblas last week, was shot on Monday, while wearing what was believed to be an explosives belt.
“We confirm that the man shot dead in Subirats is Younes Abouyaaqoub, author of the terrorist attack in Barcelona,” tweeted Mossos- The police force of Catalonia.
Subirats is a municipality in Catalonia, Spain, one hour’s drive west of Barcelona, located high in the hills and surrounded by vineyards.
According to Spanish media, a woman called the police and said that there was a suspicious man in the vicinity.
After the shooting, a bomb-disposal robot was deployed to the body of the murdered man, before police were able to approach him because he was wearing an explosives belt. They removed the belt but it is still not confirmed whether it is real or fake.
The mayor of Sant Sadurni, Maria Rosell i Medall, said that the situation is under control now. She added that Sadurni had always been “a safe and peaceful place without any indication to suggest any terrorist activity in the area.”
The other suspects, who are believed to have been part of a 12-member cell, were killed by police, or were killed in an explosion in a house in Catalonia, which happened the day before the van attack on Thursday.
Younes Abouyaaqoub, the 22-year-old Moroccan and resident of the northern town of Ripoll, has been at large since last Thursday’s attack when a rented white Fiat van killed fifteen and wounded more than a hundred people on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas, a popular street in the center of Barcelona.
The van was driven mowing down pedestrians, targeting people, weaving from side to side, witnesses said.
The Las Ramblas boulevard, that runs three-quarters of a mile, is always full of tourists and locals. During the attack, hundreds of people started stampeding through the market, running away from the van.
Witnesses said it was a terrible scene, like something out of a horror movie, people were panicking and screaming.
The driver of the van fled on foot.
The so-called Islamic State has said it is behind the Las Ramblas attack.