Catalan regional police treating attack on police station as terrorist incident

Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-20 23:30:43|Editor: Mu Xuequan
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BARCELONA, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Catalan regional police force confirmed in a press conference held on Monday that they are treating the incident which saw a 29-year-old man of Algerian origin was shot dead as he entered a police station carrying a knife and shouting "Allahu Akbar" (Allah is great) as a terrorist attack.

The incident happened at around 5:50 a.m. in the town of Cornella de Llobregat, south of Barcelona in the northeast of Spain.

The man has been named as Abdelouahab Taib, who is reported to have lived just 150 meters from the police station.

Rafael Comes, the Mossos' Chief Commissar of Criminal Investigation, said in a midday press conference that Taib entered the police station on the pretense of making an enquiry before pulling out a knife of "large dimensions" and shouting 'Allahu Akbar'."

Comes told journalists that the officer on duty had "made use of her firearm, causing the death of the individual."

He described the incident as "extremely serious"

"We are treating it as a terrorist attack," he confirmed.

Earlier in the day the Spanish Government Delegate in the Catalan Region, Teresa Cunillera, asked for "prudence," before confirming the attack was a terrorist incident.

"It is very hard to draw conclusions until we have carried out a minimum number of checks and looks for reasons," she said.

It has also been confirmed the Mossos are searching Taib's residence and that as far as they knew he had no criminal record, although they are using his fingerprints to try and discover if he had a record in any other countries.

Althoug the attack comes just days after the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks which claimed 16 lives in Barcelona and Cambrils in 2017, Comes said there was no evidence showing that Taib had any relationship with any of the members of the terrorist cell behind the attacks a year ago.

Speaking on Spanish TV, several residents in the neighborhood said that Taib had never given any indication of radicalism.

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