Tag: murder

Latest Gran Canaria News, Views & Sunshine

Foundation Investigated for Alleged Mismanagement of Public Funds Meant for Care of Unaccompanied Migrant Minors

The 7th Investigative Court of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has opened a preliminary investigation into the Social Response Foundation Siglo XXI and four of its directors. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office in Las Palmas filed a complaint against them, alleging crimes that could include forgery of commercial documents, mismanagement, and embezzlement of public funds. The investigation aims to determine whether this nonprofit organisation, and its officials, could have misused public funds intended for the care of unaccompanied migrant minors, during the migration crisis of 2020 that was precipitated by the pandemic confinement on the islands, leading to a build up of arrivals having to be assessed and cared for by the Canary Islands Regional Government, using hotels left empty due to the lack of tourism. The estimated amount involved in the alleged misuse stands at around €12.5 million between 2020 and 2022 on Gran Canaria alone.

 

Canary Islands Expect Rain and Potential Storm Weather Next Week

The Canary Islands are preparing for a change in the weather next week, as a significant increase in cloud is expected bringing higher probability of rain. The effects of a powerful storm forming in the Atlantic Ocean are likely to extend to the Canary Islands as well as neighbouring Madeira and The Azores.

 

The Canary Guide #WeekendTips 2-4 June 2023

June is here and that means that summer is just around the corner. The Patron Saints’ festivities in honour of San Juan de Bautista and San Antonio de Padua are just getting started on Gran Canaria, and in Pueblo de Mogán the main Romería pilgrimage for San Antonio El Chico is this first Saturday of June, as well as the start of the build up to those in Arucas, Santa Brígida and Moya. This weekend also brings the biggest outlet fair shopping experience back to INFECAR and a collectables fair in Gáldar.
OPERATION KILO is this weekend, at all participating supermarkets, asking you to add a few non-perishable food items to the Food Bank collection boxes to help families in need.

Vox Enters Canarian Politics, Stage Right: Anti-Migrant, Anti-Feminist, Anti-Green, Anti-Autonomy, Anti-LGBT, Anti-Multiculturalism, Pro-Franco politics find a foothold on The Canary Islands

The Canary Islands were unable to avoid the rise of the far right on Sunday, unlike in 2019, writes Natalia G. Vargas in Canarias Ahora. Vox, which previously had no representation on the islands, managed to make its presence felt in several municipalities and councils this May 28. They also secured seats in the Canary Islands’ regional parliament, securing four deputies. “Defending what is ours, our own, and fighting against insecurity” were the slogans that underpinned Vox’s campaign in The Canary Islands, along with “family, employment, and freedom.” This rhetoric, coupled with an electoral program that was repeated across all local elections in Spain, proved sufficient. Dozens of cities and towns on the islands welcomed their first far right candidates of the modern democratic era into Canarian politics, with urban areas serving as their main strongholds.

La Alcaldesa Bueno Secures Incredible Majority in Mogán

Mogán, May 29, 2023 – The often controversial incumbent, O Bueno, La Alcaldesa, has achieved an unprecedented and resounding victory once more in Mogán. The candidate who switched her party’s name, for these elections, to “Juntos por Mogán”, a local ally of the regionalist conservatives “Coalición Canaria” (CC), will once again assume the role of mayor. Her party has clinched a rather noteworthy 17 out of the 21 seats in the Municipal Council of this popular tourism destination located on the sunny southwest of Gran Canaria.

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Murder trial underway in Las Palmas over strangulation of disabled homeless man in Playa del Inglés

A wheelchair-bound homeless man, Stefan Putreanu, 61, was strangled and his body burned at an unused kiosk where he used to sleep in Playa del Inglés last year.  The man accused of his murder, known only as Ali GG, has denied any involvement in the killing during the dramatic first days of his murder trial, which started on Monday before a jury in Las Palmas.
Turkish born Ali GG, of Spanish nationality, is accused of having strangled the disabled vagrant and then set his body on fire at the abandoned kiosk, on January 11, 2019, but has denied that he was ever at the scene of the crime.
“I have not killed anyone,” said Ali GG, 44, during the first session of the trial against him and his girlfriend, Roberta S, who face, up to 18 years in prison for the crime of murder.
Ali GG. admits that he only knew Putreanu because he claims that the homeless man had stabbed him back in 2017, at a bar; and because he used to pass the kiosks on his way to the shopping centre where he worked selling tourist excursions.
Cameras captured images of the accused man passing near the kiosk at around 9am that morning.  “They are accusing me of something I have not done,” said Ali GG, whose lawyer, Javier de la Llave, presented expert evidence alleging, in his opinion, that it takes from four to five minutes to strangle and kill a person, which does not fit well with the video footage which, says the lawyer, would have only given his client about 40 seconds in which to commit the crime.
Furthermore, the autopsy report recorded the likely time of death at between 12.30pm and 5pm that day, however his client had been recorded passing the kiosk more than 3 hours before that, without any reason to believe he had returned there.  Ali GG.’s lawyer also points to an utter lack of DNA or other evidence placing his client at the scene, stressing that his client was not the the only person who passed through that area on the day and yet because of the previous altercation it seems his client as now seen “as a scapegoat” for a crime he says he did not commit.
The prosecutor maintains that there is a chain of evidence that “undoubtedly” points to the accused having carried out the killing, alleging that the he arrived at about 09:00 on January 11, 2019, at the abandoned kiosks, in the Parque Europeo in Playa del Inglés, where the man used to sleep at night, and strangled him, without the man having any possibility of defending himself as he was lying down and not wearing his orthopedic prostetic legs.
According to the prosecutor, hours later, that afternoon, the accused, accompanied by his partner of Irish nationality, Roberta S., who was also arrested on suspicion of being an accomplice to murder, and both of whom lived in San Fernando, returned to the scene and in order to erase the traces of his crime, they say he sprayed the body with alcohol, or another accellerant, and set it on fire, while she watched out in case anyone else appeared.
During the second day of the trial, yesterday, several witnesses seemed to cast doubt on the prosecution case, testifying that they had seen Putreanu in an agitated state, but very much alive, that same afternoon, around 2pm and 5pm.  One witness claims he saw another person rifling through the homeless man’s possessions, but that he did not recognise him as the accused.  Another says he saw a tall man spraying liquid where the fire started, and leaving the scene by jumping over a wall, saying too that he did not think this was Ali GG.
Ali GG’s son also gave evidence that the police had been coercive, but that his father was not a violent man.
The trial continues.

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