Vehicle in which David Ávila aka Maradona was murdered in Marbella in 2018 in an alleged reckoning with the Los Suecos clan.
It took almost five years for the alleged members of one of the most violent criminal clans on the Costa del Sol to sit in the dock for the accused. Brothers Amir and Fahkry Mekky, and Ahmad and Karim Abdul Karim, members of the gang known as Los Suecos (they have Swedish nationality despite being of Iraqi origin), will be charged this Monday by a popular jury with killing David Ávila – aka Maradona – and Sofian Mohamed – a.k.a. El Zocato – in Marbella between May and August 2018. Prosecutors wanted a permanent, reviewable sentence for them, but according to the inspection file signed by Judge Manuel Sánchez Aguilar, the crime was committed by the criminal organization so they did could only be convicted of two crimes of murder and illegal possession of firearms. That means a maximum of 54 years in prison. In addition to them, there are five other defendants: three are considered accomplices in the first case, two more in the second case.
The trial, in which around twenty police officers and a large number of witnesses, experts and coroners will testify, is one of the most awaited on the Costa del Sol, thanks largely to the specific nature of the crimes that shocked Marbella. Maradona was killed by a motorcyclist who shot him five times just as he was leaving his son’s communion in Marbella, and who later escaped in a Yamaha T-Max. El Zocato was shot nine times at point blank range at the door of his home in Estepona by a man who later escaped on a bicycle. The origin of double billing is believed to be in drug trafficking.
The court order assumes that in both cases it was Ahmad Abdul Karim who pulled the trigger. He will be the first to testify on April 11, while the other suspects in the murders and their accomplices will do so on April 12 and 13. His words will be heard over 29 sessions by a people’s jury, which will decide whether each accused is guilty or not in a verdict expected to be announced on May 22.
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The trial is also relevant because both the National Police and the Swedish agents involved in the investigation have, on various occasions, highlighted the particular violence with which they acted, even though they were only around twenty years old. “His lack of values is overwhelming,” one of the researchers told EL PAÍS. The trial also involves a degree of uncertainty because two of the accused – Fahkry Mekky and Ahmed Abdul Karim – have been at large for months, in part because the maximum four years they could spend in pre-trial detention after their arrest expired in November 2018 Now some police officers doubt that the accused will appear at the hearing. Others believe that they will participate and that as the days go by they may or may not disappear for their interests.
Those who will make sure will be the two remaining defendants who are still in prison. One of them, Karim Abdul Karim, was convicted of four attempted murders when he detonated a bomb at the home of one of his targets in Benahavís.
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A “truck” full of tests
Gonzalo Boye is the lawyer representing Los Suecos leader Amir Mekky, who is Danish like his brother but grew up in Malmo, Sweden and is also from the Middle East. The lawyer assures that the police report produced from the investigation by the Drugs and Organized Crime Unit (Udyco) is discredited by the scientific evidence presented during the trial. “They find that none of the defendants were near the places where the murders took place, so they falsify the accusation,” he explains, noting that none of them have gunshot residue in their hands or clothing. “We have a test truck that makes it all fall apart,” he emphasizes.
Meanwhile, the case is being followed with particular interest in Sweden, and its journalists have written numerous reports and dozens of podcasts about these murders on the Costa del Sol, one of Swedes’ favorite holiday destinations – Spain is the second tourist destination for this Nordic country’s population – and where many others live. “This case symbolizes the presence of Swedish gangs in Spain,” says Diamant Salihu, a journalist specializing in organized crime. The Scandinavian drug gangs that operate in the area – where they come to scrutinize the drug – are pictured from there as rich people with luxurious villas and sports cars enjoying the weather and beach clubs of Marbella. It is a general description that is far from, yes, Los Suecos. According to Spanish police, this group lived an almost monastic life, without going out, pomp or wasting money.
This clan’s performances on the Malaga coast have brought them notoriety in Sweden, but so has their origins. Mekky, known as The Boxer, who was arrested in Dubai in June 2020 after a long and complex operation by the National Police, is believed by Swedish authorities to be part of Malmö’s organized crime and linked to 17 other murders there. “It will be very interesting to see if he is found guilty as he has nothing to do with the crime scene. The evidence, on the other hand, seems to be a web of circumstantial evidence,” explains Joakim Palkmvist, a journalist with the newspaper Sydsvenskan who specializes in organized crime. It is one of the major problems plaguing his country, where news of shootings, bombings and settling accounts with very young boys involved is constantly circulating. The same violence that traveled to Malaga with this clan of suspected killers and for which they will be put on trial this Monday.
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