Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Álvaro Prieto, David Peregrina, Esther López, Elisa Abruñedo, the eight children of Colmenar Viejo… These are names that have occupied the pages of the events of 2023 in Spain, although the most media-heavy black chronicle has been written more than 10,000 kilometers away with another name: Daniel Sancho.
And to these names have been added those of three establishments: the Burro Canaglia restaurant, in Madrid’s Manuel Becerra square, and the Teatre and Fonda Milagros nightclubs in Murcia, which suffered fatal fires in the year in which it was commemorated. the 40th anniversary of the greatest tragedy caused by the fire in a nightclub, Alcalá 20, where 81 people died.
Although the crime did not occur in Spain, a black chronicle of the year referring to our country cannot ignore the case of Daniel Sancho, which is obligatory to include even if only in passing.
It was not the most media case only because its protagonist was the son and grandson of very famous actors, but also because of the paradisiacal place where it occurred – the Thai island of Phangan -, because of the truculence in death, including dismemberment, and because of the victim.
Zaping in August – a month usually with little news – only had one objective for many Spaniards: to find out the latest news of the Daniel Sancho case. They had it easy. There was no morning or evening television program that did not feature it.
Daniel Sancho traveled the more than 10,000 kilometers that separate Spain from Thailand to meet the surgeon Edwin Arrieta, who made a longer journey – almost 17,000 kilometers – to meet the young Spaniard.
What happened on the island has already been told a thousand times. And it will be told again because in 2024 – specifically from April 9 to May 3 – Sancho will be tried in Thailand for a crime that in that country is punishable by the death penalty. Meanwhile, the young man remains in provisional prison on the island of Samui.
And since we are outside of Spain, a piece of the Spanish chronicle of this year’s events has been written in Brazil, where on November 23, Spanish chef David Peregrina and his wife Érica da Silva Santos were gunned down in Porto Seguro.
The investigation points to revenge by a former employee of the chef, since he apparently refused to give the alleged murderer the ownership of part of the islet where the restaurant is located, as he had supposedly promised.
November 9, 2023. That day was a holiday in Madrid, the Almudena, patron saint of the city. Vox co-founder Alejo Vidal-Quadras was walking very close to his house, on Núñez de Balboa Street, an area where his party staged protests against the Government during the pandemic.
From a motorcycle, someone – the judicial and police authorities believe that a Frenchman of Tunisian origin with a long history – shot the politician. Fortunately, he did not kill him, but Vidal-Quadras had to be hospitalized for two weeks.
In a country immersed in constant polarization, there were those who thought of an attack with political overtones of a “domestic” nature. But not. It seems that the order comes from outside and the National Court has decided to investigate it as a crime of terrorism in case the attack came from an organization related to the Iranian regime, given the victim’s contacts with the opposition in that country.
For now, one man is in prison for these events and another and a woman are free after being arrested. Who pulled the trigger? By whose order? Operation Tercio continues.
Álvaro Prieto was 18 years old, he studied Engineering and played in the youth teams of the Córdoba Football Club. His disappearance, on October 12, could have been one of the thousands that occur each year and could have gone unnoticed, like hundreds of them.
But it was immediately realized that it could be a risky case and an intense search began that transcended the media.
Álvaro had gone the day before from Córdoba to Seville to spend the night with friends and was going to return on the AVE that morning of the 12th. His cell phone battery died, he couldn’t find his ticket and tried to sneak in.
He died from electrocution due to contact with the catenary when he climbed onto the roof of a carriage. An RTVE cameraman casually captured the image of his body wedged between two cars.
The case leaves many questions, from the reasons why Álvaro did not want to charge his cell phone, as he was offered at the station, to why it took so long to find his body if he died that same day, as revealed by the autopsy.
December 17 marked the 40th anniversary of the fire at the Alcalá 20 nightclub in Madrid. Months before this anniversary, in April, a fire in an Italian restaurant in Madrid left three dead and several injured. Already in October, the raid in two neighboring nightclubs in Murcia ended the lives of thirteen people.
Both cases are being investigated, but they have put on the table the eternal question when misfortunes of this type occur: Why are the regulations not complied with? And this other: Is compliance controlled?
Pending the definitive results of the investigations, the deficiencies detected are a bit similar to those of Alcalá 20: blocking of the emergency doors, highly flammable decoration, no inspections…
There have been two fires with significant repercussions in the media and from which some lessons can be drawn. Will we learn them?
For yet another year, minors have been involuntary protagonists of the black chronicle of 2023.
And one of the cases occurred on March 29 when the Civil Guard arrested a couple in Colmenar Viejo (Madrid) for allegedly mistreating their eight children between 4 and 14 years old. It was surprising that the father was a doctor who practiced at the Gregorio Marañón hospital.
Neighbors say that the minors were always alone and that one day they almost burned down the house. A judicial investigation found that the children lived poorly in a room, were forbidden to go into the living room and were punished with physical abuse or by being left in the open patio. Of course, they missed class a lot.
Today its protection is exercised by the Community of Madrid.
And two very similar events overwhelmed the Spanish. One occurred on February 21 in Sallent (Barcelona). The other on May 19 in Oviedo. Two 12-year-old sisters – twins in the first case, twins in the second – jumped from the windows of their respective buildings. From a third the first, from a sixth the second.
One of them died in Sallent. In Oviedo both.
Some causes have been pointed out to explain their deaths, such as situations of harassment or gender identity problems in one of the cases. And once again the debate was opened about bullying in classrooms and how to avoid it. Well, how?
It is not the first year that security forces solve crimes almost forgotten by public opinion. Not so for the families of the victims and for the investigators.
Almost ten years after being raped and murdered, in October of this year the Civil Guard arrested the alleged perpetrator of the death of Elisa Abruñedo, a woman who was 49 years old at the time and whose naked body was found on September 1, 2013 in Cabanas (A Coruña).
He was found with signs of sexual assault and stab wounds hidden in some brambles near his house. If the aggressor had “relaxed” after ten years, he had to be surprised when on October 17 the Civil Guard came looking for him.
And while this Friday the children of San Ildefonso sang the National Lottery, the Civil Guard reported another arrest after four years of investigation. Three arrested for the crime of a Portuguese man whose body appeared on December 27, 2019 in an area around the Lake Sanabria natural park (Zamora).
What is not resolved, although for the armed institute it is, is the death of Esther López, last seen alive on January 13 of last year and found dead on February 5 of that same year in a ditch in Traspinedo ( Valladolid).
The main investigator, Óscar S.M., appeared again before the judge investigating the case this month, but was released with precautionary measures pending further investigations.
Meanwhile, Esther’s family continues to demand that justice be done.
