Spanish police shoot man shouting in Arabic

Spanish police shot and wounded a man who shouted "Allah is great" after the vehicle he was travelling in was stopped at a police checkpoint in the province of Girona, northeast Spain, in the early hours of Saturday.

The incident happened when the man was travelling in the passenger seat of a vehicle that was stopped at a checkpoint at the Junquera toll booth close to one of the main frontier crossings between Spain and France, reported Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia.

While the woman driver was questioned by an agent of the Civil Guard, the man became increasingly nervous and other police officers thought they noticed he had suspicious lump close to his waist.

They asked him to get out of the car and proceeded to search him at which moment he is reported to have shouted "Allah is great" and ran back to the car, only to get out of the vehicle with an "object" in his hand, which he waved in a threatening manner at which point he was shot by both a Civil Guard.

He was then taken to a hospital in Girona where he was operated on and is reported to be in a stable condition.