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Barcelona attack: Police shoot dead 'knife-wielding man'

Attack being treated as 'terrorist incident'

Harry Cockburn
Monday 20 August 2018 13:50 BST
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Body of Barcelona police station attacker removed by authorities

A man armed with a knife has been shot dead after attacking a police station near Barcelona.

Catalonia’s regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, said the man entered the station in Cornella – an area west of the city centre, at 5.52am, (3.52 GMT).

He had “the aim of attacking the officers”, the force said, adding that he had then been shot.

The authorities are treating the attack as a terrorist incident.

State broadcaster RTVE said the attacker was a 29-year-old Algerian resident in Cornella with Spanish identity documents, and had been killed by the gunshot.

Police stations across the country have been put on alert as a result of the incident.

The assailant is believed to have been of Algerian origin and had been living in the area for several years, according to reports.

Mossos said: “An investigation has been launched following the events that occurred this morning in our Police Station in Cornellà, in order to clarify the reasons for the attack.”

The incident comes just days after Barcelona commemorated the first anniversary of an attack in which a 22-year-old man killed 14 people and injured over 100 with a car on Las Ramblas – Spain’s worst terror incident in more than a decade.

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