Another person linked to the fatal attack in Gata de Gorgos has been jailed after appearing before the court in Dénia, which continues to investigate the incident, according to the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de la Comunidad Valenciana (TSJCV). His detention comes one day after the same court had released him under precautionary conditions. This development coincides with the funeral held for the 39-year-old victim, David Lledó, on the same day.
Nearly a thousand residents joined a civic procession that accompanied the coffin to the local cemetery. The large turnout was peaceful, with no reports of incidents or chants with racist or xenophobic overtones. The victim was struck in the head with a baseball bat on a street corner last weekend, an act that has shocked the Marina Alta community and beyond.
The man now imprisoned is the cousin of the primary suspect and was with him when the events unfolded. Both the main accused and the newly detained individual, who are Moroccan nationals, testified that the victim and two friends confronted them in the street and attacked them. They claimed they were seeking the man now charged with homicide in response to alleged inappropriate touching of a young woman. The confrontation escalated into the fatal assault. Friends of the victim have maintained that the aggressors had been waiting for him and attacked with the bat as he emerged from a bar to drink water.
The Instrucción Court No. 2 of Dénia, which is handling the case, ordered provisional detention without bail for the second suspect. Earlier, on Monday, the court ordered the arrest of the person deemed to be the physical author of the attack. A third individual was released due to a lack of evidence showing participation in the events. The case remains open under a charge of homicide, with the potential for further legal qualification as the investigation progresses.
“The judge made this decision after the investigation steps that were not possible on Monday because the principal witness and victim’s friend did not appear, but today, responding to the judge and police request, he did testify,” said the same sources. The principal witness was the victim’s companion, with whom he was present when the events occurred.
[Attribution: Tribunal Superior de Justicia de la Comunidad Valenciana; report on court proceedings and investigative developments]