The Superior Prosecutor's Office of the Region of Murcia, through the Cartagena Area, will open an investigation to assess whether there is evidence of a crime in the public statements made by the regional president of Vox, José Ángel Antelo, and in his social media posts in recent days, where he links immigration and violence following the riots in Torre Pacheco. According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, these investigations have been launched following complaints received from the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), Izquierda Unida (United Left), and Podemos (We Can), announced this Monday. The investigation will be carried out by the regional prosecutor for hate crimes in the region.
The Colonel in charge of the Civil Guard in the Region of Murcia, Francisco Pulido, has reported that there were three new arrests in the early hours of this morning related to the racist incidents, bringing the total number of detainees to 13. The San Sebastián Court of Instruction Number 5, acting as duty court, ordered this Tuesday the provisional detention without bail of the man arrested on Monday in Errenteria (Gipuzkoa) for his alleged connection to the assault on the sixty-year-old from Torre Pacheco, an event that sparked the racist incidents in the town. The defendant is accused of assault and battery as the alleged perpetrator of the assault. The San Sebastián court has now agreed to send the case to the courts of San Javier (Murcia),"since the municipality of Torre Pacheco belongs to that judicial district." Reports J. J. Gálvez.
The leader of Vox in Murcia, José Ángel Antelo, once again defended the deportation of immigrants at a press conference this Tuesday. He said that"those bipartisan policies that have financed illegal immigration are to blame for what we are experiencing in Torre Pacheco and other places across Spain." The regional president of the far-right party stated that his party is not to blame "for these people entering the region of Murcia illegally or being in an irregular situation." "With Vox, these people wouldn't be here; they wouldn't have attacked an elderly man with a macabre trick to share on social media," he stated.
Pepa Millán, spokesperson for the far-right party in Congress, justified this Tuesday that residents of Torre Pacheco are"taking the law into their own hands" against immigrants due to the government's inaction, ignoring the fact that most of the episodes of violence against the Moroccan community have been perpetrated by far-right militants who have arrived in the Murcia town from different parts of Spain."Everything has a limit, and what we cannot expect is for the people who are suffering from crime in their town, the families of those being attacked, to sit idly on the sofa at home. What we must not allow is for people to take the law into their own hands, but that is unfortunately what the government's inaction is leading to," she said at a press conference in the lower house."In a situation where there are victims who are continually suffering violence on the streets," he insisted,"expecting these people not to respond is no longer being out of touch with reality, it's not understanding human nature, because I highly doubt that if someone here beats up a family member or a friend, they would expect them to remain impassive."
Millán asserted that the person responsible for people "taking justice into their own hands" is the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, for failing to heed the mayor's requests to reinforce the number of state security forces in Torre Pacheco. He even accused the government of"stirring up this problem and deliberately sowing chaos to criminalize Spaniards who legitimately protest and disrupt legitimate protests" and predicted that they will be repeated in the future, even if his party doesn't like it.
Last night, there were three new arrests related to the racist incidents that occurred in the town, according to the Colonel in charge of the Civil Guard in the Region of Murcia. He noted that more than 120 people have been identified, many of whom have been seized with instruments that could be used as weapons in such situations. The racist incidents began last week after the attack on a man in his 60s, in which three young men of North African origin were involved, who have already been arrested.
Regarding the complaints filed with the Prosecutor's Office, José Ángel Antelo believes that the hate crimes prosecutor, Miguel Ángel Aguilar, is"wasting his time" investigating them and assumes that the complaints filed against him will eventually be dismissed."Telling the truth isn't hate; what is hate is what the left does. Belonging to the Socialist Party or Podemos today is the biggest hate crime against the Region of Murcia," he declared Monday night on El Toro TV, a channel linked to the far-right party. Antelo also accused the Interior Minister of provoking this outbreak of violence"to distract attention from the immense corruption taking place" and of "using the residents of Torre Pacheco as hostages."
