A 39-year-old Gran Canaria man has died after being gunned down in Telde yesterday evening.
The incident happened in broad daylight and horrified onlookers said the victim was shot five times by a lone motorcyclist who had pulled up alongside him seconds before.
Emergency services arrived on the scene within minutes but could do nothing to save his life. An island-wide hunt is under way to locate the gunman, with CCTV of roads leading out of the area being carefully studied to determine the route taken by the motorcyclist as he made his escape.
Although all lines of enquiry remain open, police believe the shooting – described as a textbook execution – may have been a case of score-settling between rival drug dealing gangs. According to the Canarias 7 newspaper, the victim was the nephew and right-hand man of a key figure in the drugs trade in Telde and Las Palmas, who is currently serving a 12-year jail term for the attempted murder of two men in the Jinámar district of the capital three years earlier.
The killing comes at the end of a week that has seen two other gruesome crimes committed in Gran Canaria which have made the headlines.
On Wednesday, a couple from the El Zardo district of Las Palmas were found dead in their home in what the authorities now say is a case of gender violence. According to police, the woman, in her late fifties, was killed by her partner who then took his own life by hanging himself. The macabre discovery was made by the woman’s daughter, who visited the house after becoming concerned that her mother had not turned up for work and had not been in contact.
Two days earlier, on Monday night, the placid town of Firgas in the north of the island was rocked by the news that a 57-year-old local man had been stabbed to death in his home by his granddaughter, aged 19, whose boyfriend has also been arrested in connection with the killing.
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