Spain to start trial of suspects linked to deadly 2017 van attack
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Spain’s High Court will on Tuesday open the trial of three suspected Islamist militants linked to a 2017 attack in Barcelona which killed 14 people – Spain’s deadliest in over a decade.
A single attacker drove a rented van into crowds on Barcelona’s central La Rambla boulevard, causing 14 deaths and injuring over a hundred people. Another man was killed during the attacker’s getaway.
On the eve of the attack, an accidental explosion destroyed a house in Alcanar, southwest of Barcelona, where explosives and gas canisters had been stored. The blast killed the group’s suspected leader, an imam.
Two of the accused, a Spaniard and a Moroccan, face charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation, manufacturing and storing explosives, and attempting to cause widespread destruction, which are all related to the Alcanar blast but not directly to the Barcelona attack, according to court documents.
Prosecutors are seeking jail terms of 41 and 36 years for the two and eight years for another Moroccan national who is accused of being an accomplice. They have been in prison pending trial since their arrests in 2017 in connection with the blast.
