Spain set to begin the trial of suspects linked to the deadly 2017 van attack

SPAIN is set to begin the trial of suspects linked to the deadly 2017 van attack which killed 14 people in Barcelona.

Spain’s High Court will on Tuesday, November 10, open the trial of three suspected Islamist militants linked to the attack in which a single attacker drove a rented van into crowds of people on Barcelona’s central La Rambla boulevard.

The attack, Spain’s deadliest in over a decade, caused 14 deaths and injured over a hundred people, with another man killed during the attacker’s getaway.

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 related to an accidental explosion on the eve of the attack that destroyed a house in Alcanar, southwest of Barcelona, where explosives and gas canisters had been stored.

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 and potential connection to the Barcelona attack.