Teenagers held for stabbing 16-year-old

PALMA
TWO Spanish teenagers were being held yesterday in connection with the fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old from the Republic of Equatorial Guinea in Palma on Sunday night.

The National Police fear that Eusebio Ebulabate is the latest victim of a running battle between the rival Bling Bling and Gia gangs in Palma, but all options are being kept open as they question the 15 and 17-year-old brothers arrested at their Palma home at 1.30am yesterday.

According to National Police spokesperson, Janka Jurkiewickz, the attackers and the victims “knew one another” and the police understand that the victim had been previously threatened by members of the same gang as the suspects who happen to live in the same block of flats as the victim and his family.

Police are awaiting the autopsy results, but Jurkiewickz confirmed yesterday that the teenager, a Spanish national had been stabbed four times. Thrice in the thorax and once in the back, very close to his kidneys. The younger of the two apparently smashed a bottle over Ebulabate's head before his elder brother allegedly stabbed the EquatorialGuinean.

The teenage brothers are considered solely responsible for the stabbing and they have since shown police to where they dumped the large kitchen knife apparently used in the attack. Yesterday, as police continued with their investigation, mourning friends and family of Ebulabate held a vigil at the scene of the 16-year-old's death on the corner of Blanquerna and Antoni Marques, near the Rivoli cinema.

The family, which lives in a council block in calle Eucaliptus is devastated. “My son came to Majorca just six years ago and now we have to bury him,” Ebulabate's mother said yesterday. The stabbing has shocked much of the Son Gibert neighbourhood and his schoolfriends were heartbroken yesterday.

But, not all the neighbourhood was friendly. Ebulabate had a few problems with a number of local lads, according to his mother, a few had been reported to the police, and the family is convinced that the attack was premeditated. But that is for the police to confirm and they are keeping a media black out on the case while they apparently question a large number of eye witnesses. A special unit to monitor mainly Latin gang activities in Palma was recently set up by the National Police.