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Esther Armora
Barcelona
Wednesday, 21 August 2024, 10:59
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A former commander of Spain's National Police force in Catalonia has allegedly killed his ex-partner and wife, before taking his own life.
Juan Fortuny de Pedro was the second-highest ranking National Police officer in Catalonia until January 2023 when he retired. The Mossos d'Esquadra regional police force's criminal investigation unit is investigating the three deaths in the municipalities of Rubí and Castellbisbal in Barcelona.
The crime has sent shockwaves through the region's National Police unit where Juan Fortuny was highly regarded. A tribute paid to him at the Barcelona police headquarters last January, when he retired after 44 years of service, can still be viewed on social media.
Mossos received a tip-off early on Tuesday morning (20 August) that the body of a woman had been found in a house in Carrer de la Música in Rubí. The bodies of another woman and a man were then found in Castellbisbal, in Carrer Bellesguard, also in Barcelona. In the latter case, the tip-off came from a relative, the couple's eldest daughter. Police located the bodies in what was the couple's usual home.
According to Mossos, the three deaths were caused by the use of a firearm and the victims are "the ex-partner and the current partner of the alleged perpetrator, who allegedly died by suicide". The High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) said neither of the policeman's two victims were on record as previous victims of gender violence.
Han sido 44 años al #servicio de todos
— Policía Nacional (@policia) January 15, 2023
La Jefatura Superior de @policia en #Cataluña ha rendido este pequeño homenaje al comisario principal Juan Fortuny de Pedro, jefe regional de Operaciones, en el día de su #jubilación
Siempre serás parte de la #FamiliaAzul 💙 pic.twitter.com/bj1AuxqWkY
The first theory police are investigating is that the retired commissioner allegedly first murdered his ex-partner in Rubí and then moved to Castellbisbal, where he killed his wife, before then dying by suicide. The court in Rubí is investigating the incident as a case of gender violence. If this new case is confirmed, the two murdered women would become the 11th and 12th victims at the hands of their partners or ex-partners in Catalonia so far this year.
Fortuny, born in Catalonia, joined the police force in 1979, where his first posting was the National Police headquarters in Catalonia, where a tribute was paid to him on the day of his retirement just a year and a half ago.
After carrying out various functions at headquarters, he was assigned as commissioner to Rubí (Barcelona), the very city where his ex-wife, who was murdered yesterday, lived. Between 2001 and 2003, Fortuny was in charge of the centre for the internment of foreigners (CIE) in Barcelona, while in 2006 he returned to the high command, where he was in charge of the police intervention unit (UIP) and head of the unit against immigration and border networks (Ucrif).
Fortuny's rise through the ranks continued in November 2012, when he was appointed provincial chief of police in Lérida. He reached this position after some highly valued work as the head of the Ucrif, which had become "the most important unit in the country in terms of the volume of gangs dismantled and the number of arrests made", which was pointed out when he took up his new post in Lérida.
He remained the top police officer in Lérida until 2016, when he was removed and sent to a lower-ranking post in Tarragona. Commissioner Fortuny appealed the transfer, which he claimed was politically motivated, and in 2018 the High Court of Justice of Catalonia ruled that the directorate general of police of the ministry of interior acted with "arbitrariness" in the dismissal. Following that ruling, in 2019 he was promoted to become the number two of the National Police in Catalonia as regional operational chief, a position he held until his retirement.
The town halls of Rubí and Castellbisbal called for a minutes of silence in tribute to the victims this Wednesday. "The councils of Rubí and Castellbisbal have called for a minute's silence in tribute to the victims. These are terrible and intolerable acts to reflect on as a society," said the mayor of Rubí.
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