PANIC ON THE PLATFORM
Dramatic moment Moroccan man is arrested at gunpoint after shouting he had a bomb on Spanish train
Witnesses tell police they heard him speaking in French and Arabic about carrying explosives
A MOROCCAN sparked panic on a packed Spanish train after threatening to detonate a bomb.
Armed police arrested him at a railway station in the Catalan city of Girona after evacuating the area before the high-speed train pulled in.
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Police chief Xavier Domenech said the alarm was sounded by passengers travelling from Barcelona to Girona who said a man was shouting in French and Arabic he was carrying a bomb.
Dramatic video footage taken by a traveller showed the 30-year-old with dishevelled hair and wearing a poncho being pinned to the ground and handcuffed.
He appeared to be calm and was waiting by the doors when it pulled in with other passengers stood around him. He offered no resistance as he was surrounded by police.
One officer could be overheard asking a passenger: “Did he have a bag or not?”
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The drama occurred around 6.20pm local time on Thursday on an AVE train which had left Barcelona’s Sants station 40 minutes earlier.
Police confirmed the suspect, who spoke in a foreign accent and told police he was Moroccan, was not armed or carrying a bomb.
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The carriage he was travelling in was also given the all-clear to continue in service after an inspection with sniffer dogs.
The mystery man at the centre of the scare, who reportedly gave police a name which has not appeared on any of their databases, remained in custody on Friday after being held on a public order offence.
He was expected to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. His identity is yet to be confirmed.
The regional Mossos d’Esquadra police force confirmed the scare in a Tweet saying: “False alarm over a supposed bomb on a train between Barcelona and Girona.
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“A man who threatened to detonate it has been arrested in Girona.”
Last month it emerged Islamic State fanatics had issued a “direct threat” to popular Spanish tourist resorts where millions of Britons will holiday this summer.
Government documents have pointed to the terror group publishing in Spanish in an attempt to increase its influence on radicals living in Spain.
The number of British tourists visiting Spain soared from a low of 12.5 million in 2010 to a record high of 17.8 million in 2016.
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