Awarded Best
ISSUE NO. 1709
5 - 11 April 2018
Newspaper in Spain 2018
A XARQUÍA - C OSTA T ROPICAL
YOUR PAPER, YOUR VOICE, YOUR OPINION
‘Left to die’
Men who taunted homeless Brit jailed by Matt Ford Three men accused of the manslaughter of a British man who was found at Malaga Airport with his genitals resting inside an empty tuna tin and slices of ham on his buttocks have been jailed. Irishman James O’Byrne, 59, from Cork, plus Finnish pair Jussi Petteri Munck, 41, and Mika Tapio Soininem, 48, pleaded guilty to the charge after agreeing a plea bargain with prosecutors. They will each serve two-anda-half years in a Spanish prison. It comes after alcoholic and homeless Londoner Steven Allford died on a bench outside the Costa del Sol airport’s railway station on October 21, 2016. His trousers were pulled down and plastic ties had been used to
bind his wrists and ankles. Mr Allford had been drinking heavily and choked to death on his own vomit, but Santiago Calvo Cervera concluded that the ties may have contributed by stopping him from moving freely. He said in a three-page ruling: “They didn’t just tie him to the bench, which Mr Munck made sure was done, but they filmed Mr Allford and were also laughing about his helplessness. “They put a lit cigarette in his mouth after first wedging it between his buttocks and introduced his naked testicles into an empty tuna tin. “They behaved as if they were presenting a news report and posted the video onto Soininem’s Facebook page after he filmed what was happening. “When they had finished
DEGRADING: The victim was found semi-naked with ham on his buttocks and his genitals in an empty tuna tin. laughing, they left Mr Allford to his fate.” During the initial hearing, the two Finnish men repeatedly claimed that the stunt ‘was just a joke,’ and that they only wanted to make fun of the victim, with one recording it on his mobile phone before uploading the video to Facebook.
The footage, which was quickly deleted, led to detectives identifying the culprits and proved that Mr Allford was alive as he lay face down while being mocked. O’Byrne was arrested in February 2017 as he slept rough in a tent in Algeciras, Cadiz.
Bush fire hits coast
FIREFIGHTERS in Almuñecar have put out a blaze on the Costa Banana urbanisation. Local Police are now investigating what could have caused the fire and believe it could have originated in a
shack before spreading 500 square metres. The blaze lit up the night sky as firefighters battled to extinguish its
flames which spread among the bushes. Residents at various points around the municipality were able to see the fire, which broke out next to the Jose Diaz materials store.
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‘Sex game’ gone wrong A MAN accused of murder has told police his partner died in a sex game gone wrong. The 53-year-old Danish man faces 15 years in prison and paying €200,000 in compensation to the deceased’s father following the woman’s death in 2015. The accused claimed he had accidentally asphyxiated his 40year-old partner in a consensual game during a holiday to Torre del Mar in June 2015. The man told jurors the couple practised sadomasochistic sex to ‘keep the spark alive.’ Admitting the pair had argued on the evening in question, the accused insisted they had later made up. He claimed the couple consumed alcohol and cocaine before he consensually throttled his partner with a phone charger cable as they had sex. He claimed he then fell asleep before finding the deceased’s body the next morning and asking the hotel reception to call an ambulance. The prosecution rejects this
version of events, however, claiming the defendant killed his partner at around dawn after they argued. Prosecutor Flor de Torres alleged the man waited until later in the morning to call an ambulance, using the intervening time to clear the crime scene and remove traces of his victim’s blood. The trial continues.