Simon Hunter
AFTER a major manhunt, police in Madrid have arrested two more suspects in the assassination of Borja Villacis, the brother of prominent former politician Begoña Villacis.
The detainees are Kevin Pastor, 24, and a so-far unnamed accomplice. The pair were caught on Wednesday when they were moving from a squat in Toledo where they were hiding out to a fresh hideaway.
Borja Villacis, who was the younger sibling of Begoña Villacis – a former deputy mayor of Madrid for the centre-right Ciudadanos (Citizens) party – was shot dead on Tuesday afternoon at around 12.30pm on the M-612 motorway in the northern Fuencarral-El Pardo district of the city.
The 41-year-old had a long criminal record, stretching back some 20 years thanks to his membership of far-right football gangs such as the Ultra Sur, made up of Real Madrid followers, and a splinter group, the neo-Nazi Outlaw Madrid.
He was also involved in a number of cases of assault, as well as being among 27 people who were arrested in a police operation that seized 239 kilos of cocaine and more than 700 kilos of hashish, according to Spanish daily El Pais. Villacis was suspected of being in charge of protecting stashes of drugs before their sale and distribution.
According to press reports, Villacis was targeted on Tuesday by three occupants of a vehicle on the road, who were armed with a shotgun and a 7.62mm calibre rifle.
A female occupant of the vehicle, a BMW that was hired from the Atocha train station, was arrested at a petrol station shortly after the shooting. Her two alleged accomplices, however, were spotted by members of the public having left the car previously in an area not far from the scene of the crime, first changing the number plates of the vehicle before disappearing into scrubland.
A major manhunt ensued, initially failing to locate the two suspects. Police on Wednesday said, however, that it was just a matter of time before they caught up with the pair, having identified Kevin Pastor – who is the son of the female suspect – as one of their targets.
Pastor is resident in a neighbourhood in the south of the capital, while his accomplice was living in the squat in which the pair were hiding in Toledo.
According to press reports, Pastor is considered to have pulled the trigger in the killing of Villacis. The 41-year-old is reported to have died from shotgun wounds.
The role of Pastor’s accomplice is still yet to become clear.
Initial press reports suggested that the dispute between Villacis and the suspects in his killing was related to a drug debt, or that they had arranged to meet for a physical fight over a long-running feud.
However, Spanish newspapers are now reporting that the disagreement was over a debt relating to a car. Pastor’s criminal career allegedly revolved around stealing high-end vehicles. Police are still not ruling out narcotics as the origin of the dispute.
Pastor has reportedly been involved in far-right groups since he was a youngster, and, according to one of his teachers at a reform school, denied that the Holocaust had taken place while the class was watching a BBC documentary on the subject.
The suspect ended up in the reform school after taking part in an unprovoked knife attack against two strangers in the street who were wearing clothing associated with the far left.
