'Attacker Barcelona struggled with orientation'

barcelona - The Algerian man who attacked a Catalan agent with a knife had recently told his wife that he was a homosexual. The man saw that according to sources around the investigation as a sin. He would therefore have looked for a kind of religious salvation, the El País newspaper reports.

The wife of the dead man has since made a statement. She said that her husband came with 'suicidal ideas' when she had made it clear that she wanted to end the marriage. He was terrified that the Muslim community would be behind his or her sex.

The attacker did not have a criminal background according to sources. He left a number of notes for the attack, including a message for his partner. 'I go, by God's will, to the Great Place above,' he wrote. The Algerian was not referring to jihad.

The police have camera images of the attack in a police station in the Catalan Cornellà de Llobregat. The man comes in and attacks an agent, who fires several bullets. The authorities believe that the Algerian did not intend to survive the attack.