Said Aalla (pictured), 18, left a suicide note in his room begging forgiveness
One of the Catalan terrorists left a suicide note in his room begging forgiveness for the ‘harm’ he knew he was about to cause, it emerged today.
Said Aalla, 18, left the letter in a bedroom drawer for his parents before going on a murder run which ended when he was shot dead in the seaside resort of Cambrils.
It came shortly after fellow terrorist Younes Abouyaaqoub mowed down and killed 13 people in a white van on Barcelona’s famous Las Ramblas.
The hand-written letter, revealed by Spanish newspaper El Mundo and reportedly found during a search of his house in the Pyrenees foothill town of Ripoll after last Thursday’s massacre, read: ‘I beg forgiveness from the people who I can hurt in these days. Many thanks for everything you have given me.’
Today Catalan regional Interior Minister Joaquim Form confirmed Abouyaaqoub was the driver of the vehicle that killed most of the victims in Las Ramblas as it emerged he had escaped on foot after the massacre through popular market La Boqueria.
Spanish newspaper El Pais published exclusive images of him walking through the market, which attracts hordes of daily tourists, with sunglasses on and the same T-shirt as the day before as he tried to go unnoticed among locals and visitors after a 600m sprint form the scene of his deadly massacre.
Aalla, 18, left the letter in a bedroom drawer for his parents before going on a murder run which ended when he was shot dead in the seaside resort of Cambrils (pictured)
Authorities have stepped up checks at Spain’s borders and raided more homes in Ripoll, in the Pyrenees, where many of the jihadi suspects behind the attack are thought to have lived
It came shortly after fellow terrorist Younes Abouyaaqoub (pictured shortly after the attack) mowed down and killed 13 people in a white van on Barcelona’s famous Las Ramblas
Disturbing photos show fugitive Barcelona terrorist Younes Abouyaaquob (pictured) fleeing the Las Ramblas carnage through the city’s historic Boqueria market
He left the market unchallenged and is thought to have carried on walking through Barcelona’s Raval neighbourhood and crossed the city to the university area on a hike lasting around an hour and a half before stabbing carjack victim Pau Perez, 34, to death and stealing his Ford Focus.
Catalan daily La Vanguardia said Pau, who had just moved to a new flat with his girlfriend, had phoned his family to say he was safe after learning of the Las Ramblas massacre before his life was savagely ended in his chance encounter with Abouyaaqoub.
The electrical engineering graduate, originally from Barcelona but living 35 miles away in the town of Vilafranca, is said to have used the area where he was killed to park because it was free and near where he used to study and he could then use public transport to move around Barcelona and save money.
Abouyaaqoub used the Ford Focus to try to escape, but was forced to ditch the car after coming across a police roadblock and running down an officer who tried to stop him.
Bomb disposal officers were given the task of securing the vehicle after a body was spotted inside – giving the terror suspect valuable time to escape – before it was discovered it belonged to Pau and not Europe’s number-one fugitive.
Spanish police have since extended the search for Abouyaaqoub to all of Europe as details of his audacious escape emerged
It has since emerged that 11 suspected members of the Las Ramblas terror attack cell were from the same sleepy town on the Pyrenees
Today Abouyaaqoub’s grandparents, who live in M’rirt in Khenifra province in Morocco where four of the suspected terrorists were born, told a Spanish journalist he needed to go elsewhere for answers about how he had been radicalised.
El Pais writer Francisco Perejil told how how he was met by five undercover police when he turned up at the door of Aqbouch Abouyaaqoub, 80, in the town of 30,000 inhabitants a three-hour drive from the capital Rabat after trying to find out where they lived at a nearby bar.
Describing the unexpected meeting, he said: ‘A police officer said: ‘Please, send this message, this region is healthy and people are good. This has been an exception. We have never seen anything like this.’
Claiming Abouyaaqoub’s grandfather ‘hadn’t gone off script’, he quoted him as saying: ‘One thing is certain. My grandson didn’t finish his studies here. He studied in Spain.’
Another local Mohamed Abouyaaqoub, who admitted he knew Younes as well as Omar and Mohamed Hychami who were killed in Cambrils and revealed the on-the-run fugitive had returned to the town briefly last month, added: ‘They were very quiet people. They spoke Spanish and Catalan perfectly. I never suspected them.
The Catalan regional government has said all European police forces are now searching for Abouyaaqoub and authorities could not rule out that he had slipped across the border into France
Authorities have stepped up checks at Spain’s borders and have also raided more homes overnight in Ripoll, a town in the foothills of the Pyrenees
Others thought to be part of the suspected Islamist militant network have been arrested, shot by police or killed in an explosion at a house in Catalonia a day before the van attack
Spanish newspapers also highlighted the fact that the Audi A3 which went on a killing rampage in Cambrils before its occupants were shot by police is said to have been caught on a speed camera in Paris a week before the crime.
Catalan Interior Minister Joaquim Form revealed today police were investigating whether on-the-run Abouyaaqoub has had help in making his escape.
Police are focusing their efforts to find him on his home town of Ripoll but have admitted they do not know where he is at the moment and have not ruled out the possibility he could have fled abroad.