Barcelona Van Attack Suspect May Have Crossed Into France: Spanish Police

Barcelona Van Attack Suspect May Have Crossed Into France: Spanish Police
People react at an impromptu memorial where a van crashed into pedestrians at Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain on August 20, 2017. REUTERS/Susana Vera
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BARCELONA, Spain - Spanish police hunting for a suspect after the Barcelona van attack that killed 13 people said on Sunday they could not rule out that he had slipped over the border into France.

Spanish police said security operations were under way in Catalonia and on the French border as they try to find Moroccan-born Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, who they believe is the only one of 12 suspects still at large.

Others have been arrested, shot by police or killed in an explosion at a house in Catalonia a day before Thursday’s van attack on Las Ramblas, Barcelona’s most famous boulevard.

“We don’t have any specific information on this but it cannot be ruled out,” Catalan police chief Josep Lluis Trapero told a news conference in Barcelona when asked if Abouyaaqoub could have crossed into France.

 
(Reuters graphics)
Reuters graphics