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CRIME

DNA clue leads to arrest over brutal murder of teenage girl 18 years ago

The mystery of who murdered 16-year-old Eva Blanco Puig in Madrid almost two decades ago appeared to be solved thanks to DNA profiling resulting in the arrest of a man in France.

Published: 2 October 2015 17:32 CEST
DNA clue leads to arrest over brutal murder of teenage girl 18 years ago
Photo: Guardia Civil

The brutal rape and murder of the popular high-school student as she walked home after a night out with friends in the quiet Madrid suburb of Algete on April 20th, 1997, had shocked the local community and made headlines across Spain.

Eva was raped, stabbed in the back and then dumped in scrubland near a roundabout on Madrid’s M-100 highway and the police made it a priority to find her killer, pursuing more than 100 lines of inquiry in the intervening years.

Police initially took DNA samples of dozens of men in the area including relatives, friends and acquaintances of Eva and her family but to no avail.

Repeated appeals had over the subsequent years done little to further investigations until three years ago when advances in DNA profiling matched semen found inside her body to someone likely to have his origins in North Africa.

Then in September after exhaustive comparison to more than 2000 samples of DNA  taken during the investigation alongside a crosschecking of all those of Maghrebi origin known to be in the area in 1997 the police came up with a gentic profile that led them to their suspect.

 The accused is reported to have lived for a short time with his brother in Algete around the time of Eva's murder and worked in construction where he may have come across Eva’s father, who had a crane company.

On Thursday a 52-year-old man Ahmed Chelh was arrested on a European Arrest Warrant in Pierrefontaine-les-Varans, a town in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France near the Swiss border.

The man, of Moroccan origin with Spanish nationality was married with children and had left Spain in 1999.

Eva’s parents were informed of the arrest on Thursday bringing an end to 18 years of anguish.

“It was a very emotional moment; the captain also got emotional when he told us about the arrest. He started to cry,” Olga Puig, Eva’s mother, told El País.

“Now I hope that justice will be done and that this man pays for everything he did to my daughter.

“It looks like God has heard me and given me some joy after so many years of suffering,”

Both her and Manuel Blanco joined the Interior Minister at a press conference on Friday to congratulate police on the arrest.

 
 

CRIME

Dutch gang leader vanishes in Spain after accidental release

A top drug trafficker is on the run after accidentally being bailed from jail in Spain, officials said Tuesday, dodging a bid to extradite him to the Netherlands where his Mocro Maffia gang is based.

Published: 24 April 2024 09:23 CEST
Dutch gang leader vanishes in Spain after accidental release

Karim Bouyakhrichan was arrested in January in Marbella, an upmarket tourist resort on Spain’s southern coast, along with five other members of the Mocro Maffia gang.

They are suspected of having bought 172 properties in Spain worth over €50 million ($53.5 million) to launder their gains from drug trafficking.

But the following month a court in the southern city of Málaga decided to grant him provisional release with judicial supervision, against the wishes of public prosecutors and the Spanish government. Judicial sources said Tuesday his whereabouts are now unknown.

“It is worrying news,” Justice Félix Bolaños told a news conference following a weekly cabinet meeting when asked about the case.

“I can’t comment on any court decisions, but I do trust that the state security forces will bring this person to justice as soon as possible,” he added.

The Málaga court said in its ruling granting Bouyakhrichan provisional release that the risk that he would flee could be avoided “with other less burdensome security measures” than pre-trial detention.

It imposed bail of €50,000, took away his passport and ordered him to report to the authorities twice a month.

Dutch extradition bid

At the same time Spain’s top criminal court was processing a request for Bouyakhrichan’s extradition to the Netherlands, where he is wanted for large-scale drug trafficking.

But it postponed its extradition proceedings because the Málaga court intended to put Bouyakhrichan on trial first for money laundering, court sources told AFP.

When the Netherlands provided more information to back its extradition request, the top court summoned him to testify and when he failed to appear a fresh warrant for his arrest was issued.

Vincent Veenman, a spokesman at the Dutch public prosecutor’s office in The Hague, said it was “unknown” to them why Bouyakhrichan had not been detained for extradition.

“We are currently awaiting a decision on the extradition request,” he added.

“Our experience with the Spanish justice system is that this cooperation is generally good. Dozens of suspects are handed over every year.”

Bouyakhrichan’s brother Samir, another leading member of the Mocro Maffia, was murdered in 2014 near Marbella, sparking a reorganisation of organised crime groups in the region.

The Mocro Maffia made international headlines in 2022 after it emerged that Dutch Crown Princess Amalia had been placed under heavy protection in response to fears of an attack by the group.

Dutch media reported earlier last week that the 20-year-old heir to the Dutch throne studied in Madrid after being forced to ditch plans to live in student accommodation in Amsterdam because of the threats.

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