Arrest Made in 8-Year-Old’s Murder After Month-Long Investigation in Ceuta

On December 18, Abdelnalik Abdeselam went to the headquarters of the Ceuta National Police to report the disappearance of his son Mohamed, aged eight. The boy had gone to play football with his friends, but never returned home. His lifeless body was found the next morning in the Loma Colmenar neighborhood, with signs of violence. His alleged murderer, Cristian BP, a 34-year-old man, was arrested a month later by agents of the Specialized Unit and Violent Crimes (UDEV) of the Ceuta National Police.

Accused of sexual assault and murder, he was placed in custody. To find him, the agents viewed and analyzed the recordings of all the functioning cameras in the region. In some images, the alleged murderer and the little boy appeared at the same place and at the same time, which allowed the agents to consider him as a suspect and then proceed with his arrest. "He has a history of theft and sexual assault on minors... The child’s body shows obvious signs of violence, which suggests that he strongly resisted an assault," the investigators said.

The preliminary autopsy indicates that Mohamed died after receiving a violent blow to the head, but does not reveal whether there was sexual assault or not. Additional tests are underway to clarify this aspect. Questioned by the agents, Cristian BP acknowledged having crossed the minor in Loma Colmenar where he "went to see a friend," without being able to specify the identity of the friend in question. On the videos, he is seen returning to his neighborhood, Los Rosales, close to Loma, where he lives with his parents and has continued to lead a normal life.

When the police showed the suspect’s photo to Mohamed’s parents and relatives, no one identified him. But after his arrest, Mohamed’s father recognized Crisitian BP, "the butane delivery man who was at his home." The occasional nature of the encounter between the alleged murderer and the minor prevented the investigation from being closed. "It was complicated because it was a person from another neighborhood, foreign to the boy’s entourage, no one knew him, no one had noticed him, and in addition, he acted very quickly," say sources close to the investigation.