A lawyer representing a man arrested by police investigating the John George murder has insisted his client has nothing to do with the killing.
The 32-year-old from the Czech Republic was held on suspicion of murder on Tuesday hours after Mr George’s body was found. But he was bailed by a judge on Friday after being told he is being investigated as an alleged accomplice.
The decision appeared to indicate earlier reports police were planning to make more arrests and that the alleged killer is still on the run.
Overnight it emerged that the only man arrested so far had told the investigating judge who quizzed him at a court in Torrevieja south of Alicante yesterday he was being scapegoated after being named on social media as one of the suspects.
His Costa Blanca-based defence lawyer Manuel Ramon Rives also attributed the decision to detain him to his “recent friendship” with a man he said police were hunting as the alleged perpetrator.
The lawyer told respected local news outlet Informacion there wasn’t a single incriminating piece of evidence against his client and insisted: “He isn’t involved in this.”
The whereabouts of the other man police are said to be hunting is not known although speculation is rife that he has fled Spain for the Far East.
The Civil Guard has only made one official statement since John’s body was found hidden under lemon trees around five miles from the town of Rojales north of Torrevieja, confirming they had arrested the man who was subsequently bailed by a judge yesterday.
A source close to the ongoing inquiry said last night: “This is the only arrest that has taken place so far.”
A spokesman for the Valencian Community’s High Court of Justice, which covers the town of Torrevieja where the suspect appeared before a judge, said yesterday afternoon: “The head of Torrevieja’s Court of Instruction Number Two, acting as a duty court, has decided to release with precautionary measures the man arrested in relationship to the homicide of a northern Irish citizen whose body was discovered in Rojales on Tuesday.
“The decision was taken in accordance with the criteria of public prosecutors. The judge is currently attributing to him a crime of homicide as an accomplice or by aiding and abetting the crime.
“His bail conditions include the obligations to sign on at court every fortnight and hand in his passport and he is also banned from leaving Spain. The court will continue with investigations with the intention of fully solving this case.”
Any formal charges would only be laid shortly before trial, as is customary in Spain. The ongoing investigation is expected to take several months at least to conclude and potentially longer if the court probing John’s death has to resort to issuing international arrest warrants.
John vanished on December 14 and relatives reported him missing when he failed to catch a scheduled flight home four days later after what was meant to be a short holiday.
By December 23 the 37-year-old dad-of-two’s family had launched a GoFundMe campaign to aid a search, voicing concerns he had been the victim of a crime.
John’s brother Darren travelled to Alicante to help in the search with their parents, Billy and Sharon, and sister Courtney and Caitlin, along with up to 50 friends and wider family from Northern Ireland.
On January 1 members of K9 Search And Rescue NI, a volunteer canine search team, joined the wide-scale operation to find the missing man. Seven K9 search technicians and their Labrador retriever Rocko took part in the operation. They returned home last Sunday after scouring hundreds of miles of land.
Speaking as he returned to Belfast yesterday ahead of the repatriation of his son’s remains, Billy said: “Today has been heartbreaking, it’s a day of sadness.”
He said he believed his son was “lured to his death” and admitted he was bracing himself for further heartbreak when he saw Mr George’s two sons back in West Belfast. Spanish police have not said what they believe to be the motive for the crime.