Spanish police say driver of Barcelona rampage van identified

Spanish authorities officially notified European police of driver's identity


Afp August 21, 2017
Mourners gathered in Barcelona's Sagrada Familia basilica to remember the 14 people killed in two deadly vehicle attacks claimed by the Islamic State group. PHOTO: AFP

BARCELONA: Spanish police said on Monday that they have identified the driver of the van that mowed down pedestrians on the busy Las Ramblas boulevard in Barcelona, killing 13.

Police in Catalonia announced the identification on Twitter, without giving his name. But Catalonia's regional interior minister Joaquim Forn told local radio that "everything suggests the van driver is Younes Abouyaaqoub".

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Spanish authorities officially notified European police of the identity of the driver. "We have to talk to European police to notify them of the identity because this person... is likely being sought in all European countries," Forn told local radio.

The 22-year-old Moroccan remains at large, and police said on Sunday that they did not know if he was still in Spain. "We don't know where he is," regional police chief Josep Lluis Trapero said Sunday.

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