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Casablanca – A Spanish man who publicly shot his Moroccan victim — Younes Blal — dead last year, has recognized his crime but pleaded for the young Moroccan’s death to be classified as a “homicide” rather than “murder.”
Following a verbal dispute in June 2021, the Spanish man named Carlos Patricio publicly shot Younes Blal on a café terrace in Murcia, south-eastern Spain, in what many eyewitnesses described as a barbaric and racist murder.
By the time of his heinous killing by the Spaniard defendant, 30-year-old Blal had for years been residing in the municipality of Mazarron in the Murcia province.
He was father to a son with Andrea Hidalgo del Valle, his Spanish girlfriend who has since become an anti-hate crime campaigner and a fierce advocate of justice in the young Moroccan’s murder.
The hateful murder generated outrage and grief within the Moroccan community in Spain and throughout the world.
Associations and political parties in Spain, as well as the victim’s widow, all condemned the crime as “xenophobic and racist.”
The defense and civil lawyers in the Blal case are still “defining the facts” in the murder/homicide case as judges evaluate each party’s case before reaching a final verdict. While the murderer had previously admitted to the shooting, he now wants to be charged with homicide rather than murder.
The defendant appeared for the first time before the judges at the Tonata court last Thursday, in the presence of attorneys representing the family of Younes Blal and the Association of Moroccan Immigrant Workers (ATIM).
Although he admitted to killing Blal on the stand, he defined his crime as a homicide rather than murder.
Ahead of the public hearings, which are set to begin in the coming days, the victim’s family and supporters have petitioned the court to classify the case as a hate crime.
In addition to the prosecution for homicide rather than murder, as desired by the defense team, the man will be judged for unlawful possession of weapons.
Police searched the defendant’s home following his shooting of Blal. In addition to his service weapon, which he allegedly exfiltrated before leaving the army, police discovered several pistols and shotguns at the man’s home.
Following Thursday’s court session, ATIM in Spain underlined its condemnation of “any act of hatred, racism, xenophobia, and violence.” The association also joined the widow of Younes Blal in calling for the purpose of hatred to be included in the court’s classification of the crime.
