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Date Published: 17/06/2021
ARCHIVED - Anger at racist murder in Puerto de Mazarrón
The killing of Youanes Blal is reported to have been a racist hate crime and residents demand justice
The murder of a 39-year-old Moroccan man on the seafront in the centre of Puerto de Mazarrón on Sunday is now being widely described as a racist hate crime rather than a settling of scores as more details emerge of the incident and the circumstances leading up to it.
The killer, 52-year-old Carlos Patricio B. M., is being held in jail without bail pending formal charges after what is described as a “small arsenal” of weaponry was found in his home. The former military man fired three shots into the chest of the victim in the Plaza del Muelle, next to the marina, after earlier causing relatively minor altercations both with his victim and with staff at the cafeteria where the murder took place.
Both the Town Hall and the local residents have condemned the attack, which has caused considerable anger among the population, all the more so as details emerge in the regional press. La Opinión quotes witnesses as reporting that the attacker shouted racist comments at the 39-year-old and his companions as they enjoyed the cool of the evening on a cafeteria terrace, before leaving and returning an hour or so later bent on murder.
“This is the last time you’ll annoy me”, he is reported to have shouted before unleashing a volley of four shots, three of which hit the victim in the chest.
La Verdad, meanwhile, has published an interview with Youanes Blal’s widow, Andrea, who is adamant that there was no grudge between the two men and that they were complete strangers before Sunday. She was not there at the time of the murder, having left briefly with her son before returning to find her husband lying on the ground, but claims that the killer shouted “Death to the Moros” before leaving to fetch his gun, and is in no doubt that his only motive was racial hatred.
(“Moros” is a derogatory racist term, literally meaning “Moors”, used by Spaniards to refer to north Africans.)
Carlos Patricio M.B. is a former member of the PAPEA Spanish military parachute unit, but in recent years is reported to have become increasingly dependent on drugs and alcohol. He was often to be found begging for cash in local bars, having been disappointed by his failure to become a Guardia Civil officer after leaving the military.
Comments he made to acquaintances and strangers in bars and cafés were frequently racist in content, according to others interviewed, and there has been no sympathy for him at all from other residents of the town. After the Guardia Civil searched his home on Monday members of the public are reported to have broken in and caused considerable damage as well as breaking the window of his brother’s car, and the brother hurriedly left town to avoid any further revenge attacks.
These violent expressions of anger cannot be condoned, of course, but they do serve do demonstrate the rejection of racism in Mazarrón, which is one of the most multi-cultural of the 45 municipalities of Murcia. Not only is there a strong north African component in the local population, but the area is also very popular among north European expats and has the highest British population in the Region of Murcia with over 4,000 UK nationals.
Over 12,000 of the 32,000 people registered on the municipal “padrón” are non-Spaniards.
On Tuesday friends and family of Youanes Blal gathered at the café-bar where he was killed both to pay their respects and to demand justice, and the overwhelming majority of the local population share their demands for the full weight of the law to be brought to bear on the perpetrator of this appalling murder.
To this end the lawyer representing the victim’s family is maintaining that the killer’s actions cannot be accounted for by diminished responsibility after taking drugs or consuming alcohol: he is not known to have a history of psychological disorder, according to Melecio Castaño as quoted in La Opinión, and was prescribed nothing more than anti-anxiety treatments.
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