The saddest news this summer 2011 was the dramatic way the 28 years old waiter Abel Ureña Zafra came to death, two weeks after his colleague, a security guy, had punched him brutally at their both working place, the newly opened Ushuaïa Beach Hotel.
After the attack (for which there is no clear reason until today) on the 19th of August 2011, Abel was laying in coma at the hospital “Nuestra Señora del Rosario” in Ibiza town for two weeks, before he died from the heavy head injuries he had received from the bouncer.
Only a few hours after the tragical incident at Ushuaïa, the security escaped from the island. Police investigations turned out that he was not only registered at the company that runs Ushuaïa (the Fiesta Group) under a completely false name, but he was actually a well-known criminal, searched by police departments in several countries.
Abel’s death was not only a big shock for the island, but opened up a whole discussion about the security staff working at discotheques in Ibiza, about their working conditions and what the clubs are doing to train their staff. A lot of criticism came up because most securities who work in Ibiza in the summer have never received any appropriate training for this kind of job. Not as in many other European countries where people offering security services have to fulfill very strict regulations and regularly have to go through practical and psychological trainings.
The real name of Abel’s murder is Paulo Cesar Baptista. He had totally disappeared for more than 3 months and finally got arrested in Holland. On the 7th of December he was brought back to the island. Hands and feet shackled and guarded by two officers of the Guardia Civil, Baptista landed at the Eivissa airport and in a clumn of 3 vans and a big number of agents was directly brought to the Penitentiary of Ibiza. The prison doors were opened so the van could enter in which was the Portuguese. Considered to be a dangerous prisoner he was led straight to the isolation block.
Baptista’s return to the Island was a highly anticipated event. Three and a half months had passed since the incident on August 19th at Ushuaïa where he was hired under the name of Jose Pereira Sousa because somehow, he had managed to get legal Spanish papers.
After his escape from Ibiza the Guardia Civil traced him to a city near Amsterdam. There he got arrested on November 21st. On Monday, 12th of December, he will have to give his first statement at the court of Ibiza. In the next couple of weeks the court will have to find out what exactly hat happened at Ushuaïa this day in August, and will also take the statements of numerous witnesses. His aggression was also recorded by the cameras of Ushuaïa.
How long the procedure will take we can’t say but everything points in the direction that he will sentenced to ten to fifteen years in prison.
