Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Mum confesses to killing of Spanish politician

A 59-year-old mother has confessed to firing the bullets that killed Spanish politician Isabel Carrasco, shot down in the city of León on Monday, saying she did it because of a "personal grudge".

Published: 14 May 2014 11:41 CEST
Mum confesses to killing of Spanish politician
Police officers search for a gun and bullet cartridges in a river under the bridge where Leon provincial council chief Isabel Carrasco was killed in León on Monday. Photo: Cesar Manso/Manso

María Montserrat G. F told police investigators she killed Carrasco because of the way her 35-year-old daughter had been treated.

Her daughter, also being held in custody over the murder, was fired in 2011 from the provincial government headed up by ruling Popular Party politician Carrasco, and had been locked in a wage dispute with the regional authority since that time.

The confession comes despite earlier declarations by the pair that they had played no part in the crime.

Police believe the murder was planned and that the mother and daughter pair had lain in wait near the politician's house on several occasions, according to El País newspaper.

The crime was committed on Monday because Carrasco had been walking alone, but could have taken place on another day, police said.

The role of the daughter in the crime is yet to be determined, as is that played by her friend and police officer who handed in the murder weapon some 24 hours after the crime.

Monday's killing has shocked Spain, with Prime Minister Marian Rajoy decrying it as a "wretched crime".

Mourning relatives wept outside a public building where Carrasco's body lay in state, attended by Rajoy and other leading politicians, while thousands of people filed past the politican's casket to pay their final respects.

Don't miss stories about Spain, join The Local on Facebook and Twitter.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Spain seizes 1.8 tonnes of Sinaloa Cartel’s crystal meth

Spanish police said Thursday they had seized 1,800 kilos of crystal meth that Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel was trying to sell in Europe, the country's "biggest-ever seizure" of the narcotic.

Published: 16 May 2024 17:07 CEST
Spain seizes 1.8 tonnes of Sinaloa Cartel's crystal meth

Police arrested five people during the raid in the eastern Alicante province, one of them a Mexican running the cartel’s Spanish operation, a statement said.

“This is the biggest-ever seizure of crystal meth in Spain and the second largest in Europe,” Antonio Martinez Duarte, head of the police’s drug trafficking and organised crime unit, told reporters.

“Among those arrested is a Mexican citizen linked to the Sinaloa Cartel,” he added.

READ ALSO: What are the penalties for drug possession in Spain?

He did not give his name but indicated the suspect was responsible for receiving the narcotics in Spain then distributing them within Europe.

The Sinaloa Cartel is one of Mexico’s oldest, largest and most violent criminal groups whose influence remains strong despite the arrest of its founder Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman and his son.

Both have been extradited to and jailed in the United States.

During the operation, police also detained three Spaniards and a Romanian, seizing five cars, documents, a weapon and cash.

But police believe it was a one-off trafficking operation and that “Mexican organisations are not permanently based” in Spain, Martinez Duarte said.

“These organisations send a trusted person who carries out the operation in line with their interests” and once that is over, he goes back home, he explained.

The seized narcotics had been due to be shipped to central Europe.

Although Spain is one of the main drug gateways to Europe, seizures of synthetic narcotics are uncommon as most traffickers usually deal in cannabis and cocaine.

READ ALSO: Why is Spain’s Europe’s cocaine gateway?

SHOW COMMENTS