Police

Arrest for possible hate crime graffiti

Graffiti at the Casal Popular Voltor Negre. | @CasalNegre

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma14/08/2018 00:00

The Casal Popular Voltor Negre is a place in Palma associated with the radical left. On 5 August some graffiti was painted onto a wall. Among the targets were the mayor of Palma, Antoni Noguera ("bastardo", said the graffiti), and the speaker of the Balearic parliament, Baltasar Picornell. It was not the first time that "fascist" graffiti had appeared.

On Monday, the National Police arrested a 53-year-old man, who faces a possible charge of having committed a hate crime. He admitted responsibility, saying he had done it in response to having been unable to sleep because of a party at Voltor Negre. He showed officers a paint pot in his car. He had used this to write the graffiti.

However, this was not the first time he had been detained for such an act. In January he was arrested because of graffiti with similar messages on the wall of another establishment and around calle Blanquerna.

The police consider that the man acts alone, has no known connection to any far-right organisation and that no such organisation is active in Palma.