Most-wanted drug boat killer hands himself in to Spanish police

The man most wanted by Spain's Guardia Civil police force handed himself in early on Thursday morning this week in Barbate (Cadiz province). More than eight months after a powerful drug-running boat killed Guardia Civil officers David Pérez and Miguel Ángel González in the port of Barbate, colleagues were able to handcuff Moroccan Karim El Baqqali, 32, better known as 'El Enfadado' (the angry one), for his irritable and unpredictable character.

El Baqqali was the pilot who, on the night of 9 February, was at the controls of the boat that knowingly ran over the much smaller police dinghy in which the deceased officers and others who were injured were travelling.

Sources said El Baqqali, who has a record for drug trafficking, fled to the Moroccan town of Dalía, adjacent to Ceuta, where he was hidden for six months before agreeing to be arrested.

The fugitive, according to the same sources, took the step of returning to Spain because of police pressure on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar and threats from other drug dealers who have been irritated by extra police activity since the unprecedented attack took place.