John Musetescu Werberg, accused of killing three people in Ciutat Vella, in the first session of the trial.Albert Garcia
In just one hour, John Musetescu Werberg, a visiting 29-year-old Swede, wreaked havoc in Barcelona’s old town. His incomprehensible criminal outburst, without any clear or apparent reason, began in an apartment in the Ribera neighborhood and ended in Plaça de Sant Jaume, where he was arrested. On the afternoon of January 20, 2020, he killed three people: Héctor Núñez, 30 years old; Rosa Diaz, 77; and David Caminada, 52. It was them, but it could have been others. And above all, there could have been more, say the witnesses, some of whom barely survived Musetescu’s irrational attack during the trial during those days.
“The meter saved me. I don’t know what he shouted at me in another language. He pulled out the knife and started playing tag with me. We walked around the counter two or three times. Then he went through the back door,” explained Mohamed M., dependent on an espadrille shop that Musetescu entered after committing the first two crimes. When asked by the prosecutor, the witness denied that the young Swede had any intention of stealing. “I got the impression that he was a drugged man who didn’t know where he was,” he explained.
Prosecutors allege that the assailant, who is in the defendant’s dock these days, acted to the fullest extent of his abilities that afternoon. Although he suffered from mental illness in Sweden and was addicted to some pharmacological substances and cocaine, prosecutors claim he knew what he was doing. Witnesses and clues place him at the crime scene without major complications. For this reason, the only reasonable way of defending yourself before a popular jury is to seek some form of mitigation or exemption on the grounds of a mental disorder. But the defense cannot fight this fight against their will because Musetescu, who has been in prison since that day, does not want his sanity to be discussed in court.
Musetescu, who faces 59 years in prison for two murders and one manslaughter, asked his lawyer on Wednesday to stop representing him. He did so arguing that, according to sources close to the case, he had failed to mention that it was all due to maneuvers by the KGB, the secret service of the defunct Soviet Union. Nobody knows whether Musetescu really believes it or plays the mistake. In the three trials so far, he has maintained a relaxed and even defiant demeanor, often smiling and gazing the jury in the eye. This Wednesday, the accused officially asked the court to change his lawyer, but with a different argument: he said that his lawyer, who works ex officio, had not prepared the case well. After a visit, the presiding judge denied the request, which would have led to the stay of the trial.
“He didn’t drop the knife”
In addition to Mohamed M., other survivors of the day marched through the room, such as Luis Ángel O., David Caminada’s employee in the Barcelona City Council’s communications department, the third and final fatality of the young Swede. He explained that around 4 p.m. – barely an hour after the first murder – he went out into the street, alarmed by the screams of a colleague. It was the time when they ended the day. “I saw David fighting a tall man in a helmet. He thought he was going to stretch his bag or mug him. I pounced on him and separated them. He pulled out a knife he was holding.
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Musetescu had just stabbed Caminada, who died of his wounds in hospital two days later. Without releasing the knife, the attacker tried to flee, pursued by Luis Ángel O. and other people who wanted to take him to Plaza de Sant Jaume, the political heart of Catalonia, where there are constant patrols by Mossos and the Municipal Guard. “He took two steps back and one step forward, always threatening us with a knife.” At the level of the square, Musetescu tried desperately to flee, which could have cost the lives (or serious injuries) of other people. He tried to open a white van. And then get in a cab. “I dragged him out to prevent him from entering because if he did he would certainly stab the taxi driver,” said the witness, who was stabbed in the air by the young man before police arrived to get him to arrest “I remember that he didn’t let go of the knife, he had a very tight grip on it,” explained the man, who suffered from depressive episodes after the incident and had to be treated with benzodiazepines.
Musetescu showed extreme aggressiveness in all the actions he carried out that afternoon, starting at the Ribera apartment, where he stabbed Héctor Núñez 254 times, causing him “unnecessary suffering” before killing him. He later set fire to the house and dropped to the ground from the balcony (on the third floor). When a neighbor on the second floor tried to grab his legs to help him board (he believed he was fleeing the flames), the young man “started kicking him in the face,” according to a witness who caught him saw falling down the stairs on Wednesday. Balconies and that he worked in a nearby shop.
“That struck me as very strange,” added the witness, who saw him riding away on a bicycle with a helmet. A shop customer also saw him but moved away after seeing his aggressiveness towards the neighbor. “I was scared. I thought, ‘He could point a gun or whatever at me.’ Nothing stopped Musetescu, who 15 minutes later entered a door where he met Rosa Díaz, who he hit over the head for so long , until she was dead. He left and, according to another witness, “went up to a delivery guy, threw him off the bike and took it with him.”
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