Spanish police have arrested two people from the UK in connection with an execution-style attempted murder of a British man that left him paralysed from the neck down.
The suspected gunman was arrested as he tried to board a flight to Edinburgh at Alicante airport, with a woman at the same airport also being detained as she tried to enter Spain.
Both individuals been described as suspected members of a “violent criminal group originating from the UK.”
The victim, a 27-year-old man, suffered life-changing injuries after being shot in the back outside his home in the village of Santiago de la Ribera near La Manga golf resort in front of his girlfriend.
He cheated death after being saved at the scene by police officers who used their own hands to plug the bullet wounds and stop him bleeding to death.
Reports at the time said he had been left tetraplegic in the attack by a masked man who fled in a vehicle driven by an accomplice, although this has not been confirmed by police.
A car matching its description, with a pistol with a silencer attached inside, was later found abandoned in a tunnel on the nearby AP-7 motorway after being set on fire.
The Civil Guard went public with the arrests late yesterday following a lengthy investigation into the November 18 2024 shooting.
Detectives confirmed that as well as the gun used in the attack, they found a magazine with ammunition, a Balaclava and gloves used in the attempted assassination inside the burnt-out car.
Police in the UK have assisted the Civil Guard during the investigation.
The first arrest took place in April and the second in May, even though information about them has only just been officially released by Spanish police.
A spokesman for the Civil Guard confirmed: “At an airport checkpoint in April, specialists from the Fiscal and Border Section of the Civil Guard detected one of the suspects as he was preparing to board a flight to Edinburgh from Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernandez Airport.
“The individual was arrested. Two weeks later, in the month of May, the Civil Guard detected the entry into Spain of the second suspect, a woman who was held at the same airport.”
He added, revealing the police operation had been codenamed Operation Esbroya 24: “The investigation points to the two people held being members of a violent criminal group originating from the United Kingdom, who travelled expressly to the Murcian coast to locate and kill the victim.”
The Brit shot, named only as Aaron, was rushed to an intensive care unit at Virgen de La Arrixaca Hospital in the south-east Spanish city of Murcia after being targeted. He spent months in hospital following the incident. The horror attack happened around 8.30pm on November 18 2024. He is believed to have been shot four times including in the back.
Neighbours said they thought initially the shots that rang out were firecrackers kids were playing with before the first police cars and ambulances arrived.
The victim was initially reported to be Ukrainian before investigators confirmed he was a British national. A local newspaper reported at the time the serious injuries he had sustained began to become apparent when he came round in hospital intensive care, where he was placed initially under police guard.
It was subsequently claimed the Brit injured had moved to his current home from Torrevieja a half-hour drive north after undisclosed problems with a criminal gang.
A local health worker told Spanish media shortly after the shooting: “They’re talking about a settling of scores. They say that boy was hiding in Santiago de la Ribera because he had problems with a mafia from Torrevieja. “He was lucky none of the shots hit him in the heart.”
