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Teenage suspect in Marbella surgeon’s murder sent to prison without bail
The 18-year-old Swedish national is accused of carrying out a contract killing after a dispute with a client
The 18-year-old Swedish national arrested over the shooting death of Marbella plastic surgeon Alexander Aslani has been remanded in custody without bail, a court confirmed on Saturday. Marbella’s Court of Instruction Number 1, acting as duty court, ordered his provisional detention after he appeared before a judge on Saturday October 10, two days after his arrest on Thursday October 8.Officials from the High Court of Justice of Andalucía confirmed the timeline, though the case itself remains under seal, meaning investigators have not publicly confirmed a motive.
Police believe the teenager pulled the trigger but acted on someone else’s orders, and are now trying to establish whether he had help from others and who was ultimately behind the killing. Their main theory centres on a disgruntled client, with two possibilities under consideration, either someone unhappy with the outcome of a procedure, or someone who had a disagreement with the surgeon before an operation went ahead.
Investigators haven’t ruled out further arrests, and are working through a list of patients who had made complaints about Dr Aslani’s work, a specialist in buttock surgery. They’re also examining whether the person who ordered the hit was a man or a woman, and say the investigation is progressing well, with the movements of several identified patients in the hours before the attack now being traced.
It’s a pattern investigators say they’re seeing more often. Increasingly young hitmen, many of them not based in Spain, are being recruited through the promise of easy money, often because their inexperience makes them cheaper to hire. This suspect was staying in a tourist apartment in Benalmádena, some distance from the scene of the crime, and was reportedly already preparing to flee when he was arrested.
Dr Aslani, 57, was shot several times in the head on Wednesday October 7 at his Cirumed clinic in Marbella’s Río Real area, a clinic he founded himself in 2018. His partner was in the room at the time of the attack. Investigators had already ruled out any link to organised crime in the killing itself, though given the surgeon’s large international client base, police are also examining whether any of his patients might have connections to illicit activity.According to witness accounts, the attacker arrived at the clinic by motorcycle, dressed entirely in black with his face hidden behind a helmet and hood. He parked on the pavement outside, made his way to the office where Dr Aslani was working between appointments, and opened fire before fleeing the scene on the same motorcycle, taking a quiet, poorly lit route towards the Bello Horizonte area rather than the busier N-340.
With the case now under judicial secrecy and the suspect behind bars, the investigation’s focus has shifted to identifying who ordered the killing and why. For now, that remains the central question hanging over Marbella as police continue working through the list of patients and associates connected to Dr Aslani’s clinic.
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