The Malaga provincial court has sentenced to 13 years in prison a drug trafficker who rammed two National Police vehicles during a chase at 160 kilometers per hour on the A-45 motorway in 2021. The officers stopped him because they suspected he was driving a van loaded with hashish, but the man fled at full speed and one of his associates ended up attacking two police vehicles. One of the police vehicles overturned and its driver ended up in intensive care. Two other members of the organization were sentenced to two years in prison and two others could not be brought to trial because their whereabouts are unknown.
The verdict comes just as numerous police organizations complain about the lack of resources to combat drug trafficking in Campo de Gibraltar – and therefore also on the Costa del Sol – and denounce the increase in danger and violence from drug traffickers after two years of civilian protection deaths , after their dinghy was hit by a 14 meter drug boat in Barbate. Police sources insist that drug traffickers are increasingly armed and that they also feel they can ram police vehicles with impunity during chases. Not just at sea, also on the move. “They try to throw us out, run us over… and don't think about it. They do everything they can to avoid arrest and loss of their cargo,” said a national police official. “If they're already traveling with a car full of bundles, they'll take whatever it is.” “They've lost their fear of everything,” emphasizes another agent who works on the Costa del Sol. The Jupol union, the majority in the National Police, claims that it has “been denouncing for years the situation of insecurity that they face every day”. agents” and criticize the “glaring lack of material and human resources to combat growing, increasingly violent crime.”
Vehicle overturned in Malaga in 2021.
The perpetrator of the events accused in the Costa del Sol, Abdelhammid Tifour, was found guilty of the crimes of attacking police officers with a motor vehicle, attempted murder and bodily harm, as well as joining a criminal organization, forgery of official documents and against public health.
The agents who were pursuing a van as part of the operation against drug trafficking Esmeralda Capitana were traveling in two camouflaged cars and decided to stop the driver as he approached the control booth of the AP-7 motorway in the section that connects the capital Malaga with Antequera. According to the verdict, the suspect did not heed the signals and began to flee: he broke through the barrier and accelerated. A chase then began, which later extended along the A-45 motorway towards Córdoba. There, two new suspicious vehicles were placed in front of the police cars to prevent them from passing and to impede their movement, which, according to the court, “posed a serious danger to the officers acting” while the van accelerated and braked dangerously. It was a situation “with a lot of adrenaline,” as the agents explained in autumn 2022 when they received the Police Merit Cross with Red Badge, the highest police award, for their services in drug trafficking operations. fico. “You don't have time to think, only to act,” they confessed at the event, reported today by the Malaga newspaper.
The chase lasted 40 kilometers until, at the height of the municipality of Monturque in Cordoba, Abdelhammid Tifour decided to attack the police vehicles “with the aim of undermining the physical integrity of the police officers and without excluding death”. €, as they were proven to be traveling at a speed of 160 kilometers per hour. One of the agents suffered several minor injuries, but the second was admitted to the intensive care unit of the Cordoba Hospital with numerous injuries to his arms, legs, face and shoulders, for which he underwent various surgical procedures.
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In December of the same year, two of the respondents were arrested in Seville and a third in Manilva, although just over a kilo of hashish was confiscated from them. Two other people were also arrested on the Costa del Sol but were declared in default.
The slightly injured agent will receive compensation of 510 euros, while the more seriously injured agent will receive compensation of 34,000 euros. The General Directorate of Police must receive 14,000 euros for the damage to the cars.
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