On January 23 of this year, José Miguel Castillo Higueras, a former socialist councilor of the Granada City Council, received a savage punch at 8:05 a.m., when he was walking not far from his home, in the center of the city of Granada. The blow knocked Castillo Higueras, 75, to the ground, who died hours later in a city hospital without the doctors being able to do anything to save his life. Exactly two months later, on March 23, also in the morning, National Police agents have broken into an occupied house in the Realejo neighborhood, 15 minutes from where the crime occurred, and have arrested the alleged culprit of that homicide. The detainee is a 19-year-old man of Moroccan nationality with a police record. The case is currently under summary secrecy.
But while the details of the investigation are declared secret, the aggression for which the mayor died has been seen clearly on the net when, a couple of days after it occurred, the video of a security camera that recorded the moment was leaked. In the images, which are still online, Castillo Higueras can be seen walking calmly down Frailes Street, followed a couple of meters away by a young man, wearing a wool hat and a coat or jacket on his arm.
Seconds later, the one who later turned out to be the murderer, gets up to his level, surrounds him slightly and turns towards the ex-councilman to give him a single, but brutal and fatal punch. Castillo Higueras falls to the ground immediately. Then, without hesitation, the aggressor bends down, touches his head, perhaps to check if he is alive and, undeterred, looks for something in his pockets, from which he takes out what appears to be a wallet. The assassin calmly walks away, leaving the coat he was carrying on his arm on the ground.
It is that garment that could have been used to now find the alleged murderer thanks to the DNA found on it. The alleged murderer was arrested during the investigation for another crime and was later released. According to judicial sources, the police judicially requested, “with just cause and never randomly”, they say, that in the weeks following the murder genetic samples be taken from certain detainees brought to justice and one of them turned out to be coincident with the one extracted from the coat .
That Sunday in January, José Miguel Castillo Higueras was lying on the ground for 35 minutes until someone called the emergency service. Some controversy was generated in the city because, according to local media, the same cameras that recorded the murder show people walking past his body lying on the ground without doing anything for him. Finally, someone called 061 who moved an ambulance to the scene of the crime. Those same sources mention as well as collected by the cameras a previous conversation between the aggressor and the attacked, just a minute before the fatal punch.
On Friday morning, the alleged murderer was still in the custody of the National Police. Sources from this body explain that despite being fully convinced of the detainee’s guilt, he would not go to court until the 72-hour period expires before he is brought before a judge.
What affects the most is what happens closest. To not miss anything, subscribe.
subscribe
José Miguel Castillo Higueras was always a man recognized in the city for his work as Councilor for Culture in the period between 1980 and 1992. After his murder, the Plenary Session of the City Council unanimously decided to appoint him honorary councilor posthumously.
#Arrested #19yearold #accused #killing #Granada #councilor #punch