Joe Duggan (Reporter)
A BRITISH man caught up in the Barcelona terror attacks came face to face with one of the terrorists as the jihadi tried to flee.
Wheelchair-bound Craig Wilcock, 40, believes van murderer Younes Abouyaaqoub ran right past him as he fled the scene on Las Ramblas, knocking over a woman who had come to his aid.
The father of two from Manchester, who has lived in Barcelona for eight years, was going to a doctor’s appointment when the terrorist’s van careered past him and a friend who was pushing his chair.
“The van was about six metres away from me. It sped right past us. It made a crashing noise as it reached the end,” Craig, who works as a recruitment consultant, told the Olive Press.
“My mate disappeared in the chaos. Suddenly, it dawns on you what is happening. I thought, ‘If they come out with guns or knives now, I am dead. I’m in a wheelchair. I’m a prime target. Of course they are going to come for me first. I have no way of escaping’.”
He added: “I fell off a terrace and broke both my legs two years ago and I was scared when that happened, but nowhere near as scared as I was the other day. I saw bodies lying on the floor.”
Sensing his vulnerability, a woman had rushed to help him, but as she did so she was knocked to the ground by a man Craig is convinced was the fleeing terrorist.
“I didn’t know who it was, obviously, but then you start piecing it together,” he continued.
“I saw a photo of the suspect afterwards and that was definitely him. He came from that direction and he was the only one running that way.”
Craig, whose son only avoided being at the Ariana Grande concert that was bombed in May because he swapped tickets at the last minute, admits he is now ‘much more on edge’.
His friend has been left ‘traumatised’ by what he saw on Las Ramblas and is ‘too upset to talk about it’.
But after attending the memorial ceremony at Placa Catalunya the following day, Craig said ‘thousands of people wanted to show, ‘We’re not having this’.
“I have to admire the Catalans. They are tough. I spoke to a guy who is 92 who lived through the Civil War and Franco and he said ‘We won’t let it affect us. We have been through a lot here.’”
