A 45-year-old man from Morocco, Adil Lazizi, was detained after a fatal confrontation in Zaragoza’s San José district the previous Monday. He reportedly did not remain silent in front of police but instead asserted that neither he nor Cristina was the victim and that they had no relationship. He claimed to have a girlfriend and said he was making progress for her, though he suggested she was not paying attention to him.
Local media reported that the arrested man confessed to investigators that he was already imprisoned for another murder and had been hiding for two years to avoid further imprisonment. The publication Prensa Ibérica, part of the same media group, cited his statement that there was a moment when he chose not to sign a required document. Police from the Aragon Murder Group arranged to take his statement at Miguel Servet University Hospital in Zaragoza, and his defense attorneys were Carmen Sánchez Herrero and Luis Ángel Marcén.
In discussing the homicide, Lazizi described ringing the doorbell as he had done on numerous occasions. He claimed the victim was fixated on him, and he noted that he was alone at around 9:55 PM while his girlfriend was at work. He said he took a while to approach the door, looked through a peephole, observed him going inside, and opened the door to discover the confrontation that followed when a knife was driven into his stomach.
Lazizi said that both parties fell to the ground, and he wrestled with the knife until he managed to retrieve it. He reported then attacking his assailant in the neck several times, ultimately leaving the victim on the landing before seeking help outside. The on-duty judge was set to receive the case between today and tomorrow according to his account.
Cristina did not realize that the man, a Moroccan named Adil Lazizi, was in Istanbul after a 2020 search and seizure. Records show that in 2001 he received a 21-year sentence in Madrid for another crime and for violating a permit for serving a sentence at Zuera prison. In that prior case, he also killed Siham, a 24-year-old French woman traveling with a friend, after she allegedly refused a sexual advance.
The motive behind Cristina’s killing, which occurred this Monday on Calle Alegría, number 8 in Zaragoza’s San José district, remained under investigation by the Aragon Police Center’s Murder Group. Authorities considered all possibilities and did not rule out the possibility of sexist violence.
The victim, who was visiting Madrid with a friend, met the killer in a group that included another friend. Four people traveled to a rented fourth-floor flat at 35 Hierbabuena Street in the Tetuán district. There the two couples separated, but around 8:00 AM the victim’s friend heard cries of pain and found Siham’s body on a bed, eight stab wounds present. Adil Lazizi was not found at the scene but turned himself in later at a police station on Francos Rodríguez Street. The victim was found in her underwear and did not testify to officers at the time of arrest.
Investigators later concluded that the French woman’s murder appeared to be linked to a refusal of sexual advances. The weapon discovered at the entrance of the apartment, thought to be associated with the Zaragoza offense, was a kitchen knife with a bent 20-centimeter blade and a splintered wooden handle, a detail noted by authorities as indicating a violent assault. The same blade characteristics were seen in the knife used in the Zaragoza incident.
It was around 9:55 PM when neighbors alerted the National Police to Room 091 of the Aragon police precinct. Officers from the Aragon Police Department’s Citizen Security Brigade arrived at the scene, and the victim died on the landing while Lazizi suffered injuries. He was restrained on the ground and later arrested; he reportedly shouted during the arrest, attributing guilt to men in general.