Alleged Racist Murder in Spain: Man Faces 25 Years for Killing Moroccan Immigrant

"I told him not to threaten me anymore, he rushed at me and I shot instinctively to protect myself. I didn’t want to kill him, but it happened," the defendant said during his trial before a popular jury at the provincial court of Murcia. The prosecution has requested 25 years in prison against him. The lawyer for Younes’ family, Sara Megias, and the Association of Moroccan Immigrant Workers (ATIM) are demanding, in addition to this prison sentence, the sum of 235,000 euros in damages for the victim’s family members, relays La Verdad.

The events took place on June 13, 2021. The defendant, aged 55, was seated at the bar El Muelle de Puerto de Mazarrón. According to the statements of a waitress, the alleged killer had been outraged by the presence of Moroccan customers in the establishment and made racist remarks such as: "I don’t want Moors here" or "Moors don’t have papers" or "All Moors should be dead." It was at this moment that Younes, who was with friends on the terrace of the bar, would have approached him and demanded that he respect them.

The defendant, a former soldier, recounts having left the premises a few minutes later. But he returned there, he says, "to have another drink" and shot Younes three times, once in the shoulder and twice in the abdomen, with a firearm that would have belonged to his father. "I kept this gun in a bag, because I felt threatened for several months," he explained. After shooting the Moroccan, the defendant fled, before being apprehended by local police officers.