Walter Finch
A BRITISH expat who stabbed a teenager to death and fled Spain in 2020 is finally set to stand trial for murder.
Lewis Harry Briggs, 21 at the time, is accused of fatally stabbing Spaniard Ulrich Perez, 19, after a road rage incident in front of horrified passersby at the Diana Park shopping centre in Estepona on November 18.
The private prosecution, funded by Perez’s family, is seeking 23 years in jail for Briggs in a trial set to begin on September 23.
Sources tell the Olive Press that since being released on bail in 2023, Briggs has been living in Benahavis and seen ‘down Puerto Banus driving a flash car.’
It has also been reported that the alleged killer has taken a trip to Dubai, indicating he is still in possession of his passport ahead of the trial.
“He had already been warned by police before for carrying a knife in his car,” the source said.
Briggs and Perez got into a row after Perez was almost knocked down by Briggs in his white Mercedes at a zebra.
Perez had been returning home from the supermarket clutching several bags of shopping.
It is alleged that Briggs then parked up the car, got out and attacked Perez using his boxing training that he had learned at the MGM gym in Marbella, which has welcomed stars like Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
The prosecution claims that Briggs launched a flurry of blows with ‘enough force to lift [Perez] up like a doll.’
He then ‘pulled out a knife and with the precise and accurate blow of someone who knows how to kill, stabbed him in the heart.’
After the attack, which took place in broad daylight in front of horrified onlookers, Briggs made a ‘conscious and premeditated’ plan to flee Spain and fly to the UK via Portugal.
“He got rid of the knife, took his girlfriend to his parents’ house, returned to his home, cleaned the car, stole some number plates from the garage in his housing estate, changed them by falsifying the identification to avoid his vehicle being recognised, asked a transport company to transport the vehicle to England, and escaped to England by plane via Portugal, where he remained a fugitive from justice until he was arrested,” the prosecution alleges.
Briggs was tracked down and arrested in Leeds not long after in December 2020, from where he was promptly extradited to Spain.
However, after spending two years in Andalucian jails without ever going to trial, he was entitled to be released on bail and has been free since the start of 2023.
