Yzabelle Bostyn
THE controversial owner of the Asador restaurant in Guadalmina, Marbella, has been arrested during a couple’s holiday.
Jose Eugenio Arias-Camison was arrested at 02:00am on Friday while he was staying at the upmarket Caceres Parador Nacional Caceres with his wife.
The owner of polemic grill restaurant, Asador, instead spent the night in a Policia Nacional jail.
It comes as Arias-Camison has posted a video on social media explaining the incident, where he says the arrest was related to an existing legal claim he was aware of.
This has also been confirmed by Policia Nacional sources.
In the video, he says: “I want to tell you about an unpleasant thing that happened to me a couple of days ago, specifically, during the night between Thursday and Friday.
“I was with my wife in Caceres, a marvellous place where I am from and we were staying the Parador Nacional. At two in the morning, I heard knocking on the door and it was the police,” he said.
According to the restaurant owner, he suspects the incident was a ‘judicial error’ which he has been aware of since last March.
“They had an arrest warrant, and they, obviously, didn’t know anything and they arrested me. I had to spend Thursday night in a jail cell. I don’t want to say how it was, you can imagine,” he claimed.
“I don’t know if it was a judicial error or if it was political persecution, like that which I have been subject to for many months now, because this government doesn’t let anyone go against them.”
Arias-Camison, who also owns an estate agents, says his lawyers are ‘looking into’ the issue to see if the judicial error really does exist.
“A Malaga judge has wanted to indict me since March and they haven’t succeeded. It’s frightening. The notice that came to my house now more than a year ago but now that the trial is about to start, they wanted to serve me the subpoena.”
Arias-Camison became a well-known figure after opposing the 2011 smoking ban.
His refusal to comply with the new measures led to a hefty €90,000 fine, which ended up being reduced to €6,000.
However, he is still infamous thanks to his strong opposition for Pedro Sanchez’s government and left wing politics.
His restaurant, Asador, is easily spotted from the A-7 motorway thanks to its huge banner showing Sanchez and other politicians in a jail cell with the caption: ‘traitors and criminals’.
Photo: Asador Guadalmina
Inside, the posters continue, with many lauding the media, the UN’s sustainable goals and the ‘socialist-comunist’ government while praising the Guardia Civil for ‘protecting the Spanish homeland’.
