Machista crime in Figueres: kills ex-partner in a square the day after being convicted of abuse
The attacker had a restraining order against the victim, which he violated one day before fatally stabbing her
FiguerasThe Mossos d'Esquadra and the Guardia Urbana have arrested a 48-year-old man for stabbing his ex-partner to death in the middle of the street in Figueras. The events occurred around half past two in the afternoon in Plaça Tarradellas, when the man attacked the victim with a knife in broad daylight and in front of several witnesses. As reported by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) at dusk, the arrested man had a restraining order against his ex-partner for mistreatment offenses and had been arrested just one day before the crime for violating it.
Emergency services received the alert this Tuesday at noon to attend to a woman assaulted with a bladed weapon and proceeded to the scene. However, the medical emergency system (SEM) personnel could do nothing to save the life of the 33-year-old woman, who had been seriously injured.
The TSJC explained that, yesterday (Monday, May 18), the alleged perpetrator of the death —whom police sources confirm to el ARA had several prior offenses— had accepted a sentence for mistreatment of 6 months in prison and a restraining order of 250 meters and no contact with the victim for 1 year and 4 months in a fast-track trial at the Figueras court. The following day, however, the man was arrested for violating it and allegedly inflicting injuries on the same victim, who was scheduled for a forensic examination this Tuesday. However, the victim did not appear at the judicial hearing, and the judge released the detainee.
Shortly thereafter, the alleged murderer went to find the woman and attacked her with a large knife in broad daylight, in a fairly central tree-lined square, in front of several neighbors who were in the street, but without anyone intervening in the dispute. Some recorded the moments after the tragedy on their mobile phones.
According to witnesses present at the scene, after leaving her mortally wounded on the ground next to a bench, the man did not try to help her, nor did he flee running. He walked patiently to the fountain in the square to wash his bloody hands and arms. Finally, several people confronted him and tried to subdue him, until security forces arrived and handcuffed him on the ground in the same square. Residents of the area explain to this newspaper that the victim was a trans woman.
Jordi Masquef: "Something has gone wrong"
The Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) of the Mossos in Girona has taken charge of the investigation and the scientific police are working to collect samples and possible evidence at the crime scene. The case, under summary secrecy, is being investigated as a presumed femicide, and would be the third in Catalonia this year. The judicial delegation, headed by the incumbent judge of the Figueres court (the same one who had released the man a few hours earlier), has traveled to the crime scene, cordoned off throughout the afternoon, to carry out the body's removal. Mayor Jordi Masquef has also attended, who has called for a minute of silence on Wednesday at 11 in the morning to condemn the events.
On the street, a visibly affected Masquef condemned to the media "the scourge of gender violence" and extended his condolences to the family. Regarding the fact that this afternoon's tragic event was preceded by the breach of a restraining order, the mayor added: "Surely something has gone wrong. We wish we didn't have to learn from issues like this, because we should not have lamented the loss of a human life".
The mayor also criticized that images of the crime have been disseminated on social media, especially through anonymous profiles that publish unverified information and fuel all sorts of speculation about the backgrounds or private lives of the people involved.