attacks

Christmas lights were also inaugurated with doves and hearts in honor of terror attack victims

Court claims evidence justifies continued detention of two arrested terror suspects, while no victim remains in critical condition, and Mossos union calls for end to ‘sterile’ warning debate

Candles and flowers to be recycled and other tokens of support, such as letters and teddy bears, to be included in the city’s archives

Catalan police chief complains that all data enters through ‘a little window controlled by the Spanish police’

Hundreds of thousands demonstrate in the Catalan capital against terror

Two of the four suspects remain in custody as evidence emerges of plans to attack top city landmarks and churches

Worldwide media from the BBC to the Wall Street Journal take up the issue of how recent tragic events in Catalonia might influence the country’s push for independence

The European police agency regulations foresee "direct contacts" with competent authorities such as the Catalan police corps but Spain has not allowed it yet

Judge provisionally releases one detainee and extends detention of another

Catalan police handling of the attacks' communication, in four languages and always urging calm, praised by citizens and politicians

Home affairs minister says that there is no evidence that the fugitive has left the area but investigators do not rule it out

Investigators still searching for one attacker, likely to be the driver of the van in La Rambla

The terrorist attacks in Paris in November last year unleashed a wave of police checks throughout the continent, especially along the French border near Girona. It is suspected that criminals have given up using cars to transport illegal goods across the border and are now using the train network as their preferred means of transport. To battle against this, a strategy had to be designed by both the Spanish and French police agencies that would see them working together to find an effective solution before it became too much of a problem. These teams have been in operation on the high-speed train that operates between Paris and Barcelona for the past three years now.  

Current Catalan Minister for Home Affairs, Jordi Jané, warned that the jihadist threat in Catalonia is "grave" and insisted that the Government is "offering its hand" and is "willing to collaborate with everyone" in order to fight terrorism. Although he called on citizens to "carry on with their normal lives" Jané announced some measures partly due to the terrorist attacks in Paris. In the short term, the controlling of road access to the main Catalan cities is to be reinforced, as is the level of surveillance in public spaces. In the longer term, Jané announced a protocol to "detect in time the Islamic radicalisation phenomenon" at school and "avoid allowing a terrorism that wants to change mind-sets" to spread. The protocol has already been designed and will be launched shortly. The aim is to work closely with the education community to identify which pupils are more likely to radicalise. 

The detainees are accused of falsifying documents, such as the passports used in the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The seven men are allegedly part of an international network that provides Al-Qaeda with fake IDs