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Italian man tortured and killed in Colombia

An Italian man and his Colombian wife have been tortured and killed in Colombia, with their bodies abandoned by a roadside in what is thought to have been a gang robbery.

Italian man tortured and killed in Colombia
The couple were killed in Medellin, Colombia's second biggest city. Photo: Scabredon/Wikimedia Commons

The body of Marco Rallo, 50, was found in the city of Medellin on Saturday morning, Colombian daily El Tiempo reported.

The businessman from Rome had been beaten and was tied up when found, dressed in his pyjamas.

His wife María Clara Uribe Zárate was discovered two hours earlier, at around 4.20am, three kilometres away from her husband’s body.

The 37-year-old had also been beaten and was found with her wrists and ankles tied. Uribe Zárate’s body had been left next to an empty building and, like her husband, she was dressed in nightwear.

The couple are thought to have been killed by hanging, El Tiempo said.

Italy's foreign ministry said on Thursday an Italian had died in Colombia, but would not confirm the person's identity.

They are believed to be the victims of a violent robbery on Friday night, when a gang broke into their home to steal 500 million pesos (€189,000) from a safe.

The presumed gang leader, Gustavo Adolfo Vélez Arango, was arrested yesterday on murder charges. There are at least five other gang members who have not yet been caught, the newspaper said.

Medellin was the murder capital of the world in 1991, when there were 381 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. The city was at the time lorded over by Pablo Escobar, the cocaine kingpin who was killed in 1993.

Vast security improvements since his death have seen the murder rate drop to around 80 per 100,000, according to figures from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

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MA

German woman sues airport security for missing flight to Mallorca

An airline passenger is suing police after missing her flight to Mallorca in Spain due to having to wait in a lengthy cue at airport security, German media reports.

German woman sues airport security for missing flight to Mallorca
Airport security controls. Photo: DPA

The 32-year-old businesswoman from Bochum, near Dortmund in western Germany, was travelling to Palma de Mallorca from Cologne-Bonn airport on May 19th last year, the Bonn newspaper General Anzeiger reports.

The woman reportedly arrived at the airport to check-in two hours before her flight departure time. After having to wait more than an hour at the security control area, despite raising concerns with staff that she was running out of time, the woman raced to the gate to catch her flight but she was too late – boarding was already completed.

At the Bonn district court, the woman is suing the Federal Republic of Germany – as the employer of the Bundespolizei, the Federal Police – for more than €738 in damages.

After missing her flight she was forced to take a plane from Düsseldorf to her destination the next morning, which had cost €540, according to the General Anzeiger.

The passenger is accusing the Federal Police, which is responsible for airport security controls, of a 'breach of duty': she says not enough control facilities were open when she was due to fly, and too few staff were working.

She believes a lack of organization led to her missing the flight.

However, the defendant disagrees. Police argue that there were enough controls open on that day, and that the number of staff depends on the amount of passengers passing through the airport. The police received this information from the airport operator.

The court must now clarify whether the queue was actually caused by a lack of staff or by other causes which the police are not responsible for.

A settlement offer of more than €150 was rejected by the plaintiff, the newspaper reports.

The case will be reviewed and a decision will be made by judges in Bonn.

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