Four people were arrested in Spain on Tuesday as part of an investigation into the hanging of a model of Real Madrid striker Vinicius Junior at the end of January, police said.
The arrests come two days after renewed racist slurs against the Brazilian star during a Spanish soccer championship match sparked outrage at home and abroad.
These four people, who were arrested in the Spanish capital, are charged with a “hate crime,” a category of crime that includes racist crimes in Spain, Spanish police said in a press release.
Three of them are “active members of an ultra-fan group of a Madrid club,” the police added, without naming the club.
The model, wearing a Vinicius Junior jersey, was pictured under a banner that read ‘Madrid hates Real found hanged.
Following that incident, Real Madrid had denounced a “malicious and heinous act of racism and xenophobia” against their 22-year-old player, who is regularly the target of racial abuse, and said in a press release they hoped those “responsible” would do so. punished”. An investigation was immediately launched.
The investigations, based in particular on witness testimonies, made it possible to prove that these four fans, identified as part of “prevention measures against violence in sport” “at high-risk matches”, were the “suspected perpetrators of the hanging” This model underlines the police.