Young man arrested for allegedly stabbing 11-year-old boy to death on football pitch in Spain

Police have arrested a man, 20, for the alleged killing of an 11-year-old boy which happened in the Angel Tardío sports centre in Mocejón, Toledo in central Spain on Sunday.

The suspect is a Spanish national whose father and grandmother live in the town. According to Guardia Civil sources, he was in the area "spending a few days" and visiting relatives "who lived there".

Mateo, the victim, was stabbed to death on the football pitch at the sports complex on Sunday 18 August. The incident happened about 10am when the child was playing football with other youngsters. Suddenly, an individual burst into the sports facilities with his face covered with a handkerchief and brandishing a knife and went onto the football pitch.

The children ran away but one of them was hit by the attacker and stabbed. According to sources consulted by SUR's sister newspaper ABC, the boy received at least 11 stab wounds, three of them in the chest.

On Monday afternoon, several police units cordoned off Calle Dalí and searched one of the houses. "They had to be from around here," several neighbours told this newspaper. "The killer knew how to get in and out without being seen," they added.

Plain-clothed Guardia Civil officers patrolled the narrow, almost empty streets of the town on Sunday afternoon and Monday. In the search for evidence, armed forces collected recordings from several security cameras installed in the houses near the sports centre in Mocejon.

The clues led police to Calle Dalí, a small street near the cemetery. The main suspect, so far, in the death of the 11-year-old boy, who confessed to the crime, was there.

Enquiries are currently focused on the search for the murder weapon, which the suspect allegedly confirmed is in the Canal del Jarama, a waterway near the crime scene. The arrested man's father claimed his son suffers from a 70% mental disability. The Guardia Civil is yet to confirm this. "First they must provide the medical reports and, subsequently, he will be submitted to a review by the forensic doctor of the Toledo courts," police sources pointed out.

The crime sent shockwaves through the town of some 5,000 residents. Asell Sánchez-Vicente, cousin of the victim's mother, who acted as spokesperson for the parents, made an appeal on behalf of the family to stop the xenophobic and racist hoaxes and misrepresentations flooding social media. He made a plea to allow Guardia Civil to carry out their investigations without pressure.

"We want the Guardia Civil to be left to work and when they find this undesirable they should tell us: 'This is the one'. Regardless of where he comes from, who he is, we don't know. We ask for a lot of prudence and that no one be criminalised, because these are very hard times that my family is going through," Sánchez-Vicente said.

He said Mateo's parents "are devastated, without understanding what is happening and trying to process the tragedy". "The pain that my family is going through, that my cousin is going through, is incomprehensible," he added.

The family suspected from the beginning the killer could be someone who knew the area, as he entered and fled from the sports centre through an opening in the fence at the back of the complex. "We thought it had to be someone who knows that you can enter through that way, because it is a way that if you are not from the local area you wouldn't know it," Sánchez-Vicente said.

He pointed out that in Mocejón, where three days of official mourning have been declared, residents are still in "shock" and afraid. "Everyone has children or cousins or nephews and nieces or grandchildren and they are scared, as is logical. But we have to trust in justice and security and that what happened to my family will not happen again," Sánchez-Vicente said.

The crime has affected the province and the whole of Spain. In Toledo, in front of the entrance to the provincial authority, dozens of institutional representatives and members of the public held a minute's silence in condemnation of the killing of Mateo and in support of his family.

The president of the provincial authority, Conchi Cedillo, who is also the mayor of Mocejón, said: "I want to convey to you my absolute condemnation, on my own behalf and on behalf of the diputación de Toledo (Toledo council), and reiterate our absolute confidence in the state security forces, especially the Guardia Civil, who are making a titanic effort to capture and bring to justice Mateo's killer, on whom the full weight of the law must fall".