‘800 Meters’ – Netflix releases new docuseries on 2017 terror attacks

Netflix have today released a new documentary series on the 2017 terror attacks that took place on Barcelona’s La Rambla and in Cambrils. The three-part investigative series is titled ‘800 Meters.’

On August 17, 2017, a van drove at speed for 800 meters down La Rambla, giving the series its title. In all, the events led to the deaths of 16 people and injured some 140 others. 

The new investigative documentary series hopes to find answers to questions that director Elías León Siminiani had been haunted ever since the events took place in 2017: why did all this happen? What’s behind a process of radicalization of a group of youths who were seemingly well integrated into society? What makes a person feel so much hatred that they end up giving their lives to kill other people? 

In an interview with the Catalan News Agency, director León Siminiani explained that he felt the need to tell the story "from a distance," addressing the facts in-depth and based on "the most human aspect". 

It’s a series that follows a wide-scoping investigation carried out principally by three journalists, Anna Teixidor, Nacho Carretero, and Jesús García, covering various different aspects of the terror attack, its build-up, and its legacy. 

Stories from survivors are told in the three-part production, as well as stories from authorities in charge of dealing with it. It tries to offer a minute-by-minute retelling of the events, spread out across the different parts of Catalonia where they took place. 

In total, 150 people worked on the docuseries, with nearly 200 hours of footage recorded. "It had to be a totally objective story, based on the summary and also talking to the witnesses to contrast what they had said," journalist Anna Teixidor told the Catalan News Agency.

Among the witnesses of the events who appear in the series are Judge Fernando Andreu, then-chief of the Catalan police force Josep Lluís Trapero, people who participated in the investigation of the case, a woman who met the driver of the van Younes Abouyaaqoub in an industrial estate in the Penedès region, kiosk owners on La Rambla, and the owner of the Beethoven music store on La Rambla which hosted many of those affected by the attack.

The van that sped down La Rambla was not the only part of the story, as there was also an explosion in Alcanar on the night of the 16th, in the house of the Imam who is believed to be the mastermind behind the entire plot.

Terror attack trial

In May 2021, the trial of the only members thought to have survived from the cell that carried out the terror attacks saw three men be handed prison sentences ranging from eight to 53 and a half years.

Spain's National Court sentenced Mohamed Houli to 53 and a half years behind bars and Driss Oukabir to 46 and a half years for the events in Barcelona and Cambrils on August 17, 2017, while Said ben Iazza was sentenced to 8 years.

Houli and Oukabir have been found guilty of belonging to a terrorist organization; possessing, stockpiling, and manufacturing explosives and flammable substances or devices that are terrorist in nature; and attempted criminal damages of terrorist intent in combination with 29 offenses of grievous bodily harm due to serious negligence. Ben Iazza, meanwhile, was convicted of collaboration with a terrorist organization. 

Yet, none of them were found guilty for the murders, since they did not directly intervene.