Expatica news

Police ‘double murder’ appears in court

7 October 2004

 

 

Pedro Jimenez Garcia

BARCELONA –The alleged killer of two policewomen was detained in custody Monday after appearing in court for the first time.

Pedro Jimenez Garcia, 35, appeared in court late Sunday and was detained in custody while the investigation continues into the murder of two police officers who were tortured and killed.

Garcia was sent to Modelo prison in Llobregat, the town outside Barcelona where two trainee policewomen were tortured and murdered last week.

The bodies of Silvia Nogaleda, 28, and Aurora Rodriguez, 23, were found by firefighters at a burnt-out flat in Bellvitge, a suburb of Barcelona last Tuesday.

Both women had been repeatedly stabbed and there were suggestions they could have been sexually abused before they were murdered, police believe.

Police named Garcia, a convicted rapist, as the leading suspect. He was on a day-released from prison but failed to return.

Garcia was arrested late Thursday near the city of Girona, in Catalonia, close to the French border.

A 15-cm-long, blood-soaked knife which police believe was used by Jimenez Garcia to carry out the murders was discovered by a Barcelona bar owner Friday.

It had been put into a plastic bag and dumped in the bar, presumably by Jimenez Garcia hours after the killings.

The case has outraged many in Spain with critics saying Garcia should never have been allowed out of jail.

But it emerged that he had twice been released on short-term home visits as part of his rehabilitation and returned to prison.

Both victims had been trainee police officers.

It is thought Nogaleda had returned from a late shift Monday to find Rodriguez being attacked.

Police believe she was then attacked herself and possibly tortured before both women were murdered.

The women, who both came from the Leon region of western Spain, had only lived in the flat for a number of months.

Firefighters had been called to the flat early Tuesday after neighbours detected signs of a blaze.

When they put out the fire, they found the bodies of the women who had been stabbed with what police believe was a blunt instrument, possibly a kitchen knife.

Police believe that the killer had started the fire in the flat in an effort to cover-up the murders.

Jimenez Garcia will appear before a judge Sunday.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news