Man on trial for stabbing wife’s lover

A MOROCCAN standing trial for murdering a Nijar business-owner faces a 12-year prison sentence if found guilty.

The accused, a 44-year-old agricultural worker, allegedly stabbed the victim 16 times in a greenhouse at his La Rambla property.

The Moroccan worked intermittently for the victim and supposedly confronted him for having an affair with his wife.

He suspected that his wife, with whom he has a four-year-old son, “went with other men,” he admitted when questioned by the public prosecutor.

He also admitted that he was “jealous” and there were two restraining orders against him.  But his former employer was not amongst the men he suspected, he told the court.

That day, at the time of the killing, he had first gone out to find work, the man claimed.  Later he stopped to talk to two friends at the door of a bar where he usually went for coffee.

He was nowhere near the La Rambla that day, he said, and denied greeting one of two witnesses who placed him at the scene.

Although traces of the Moroccan’s DNA were found beneath the dead man’s fingernails, he had not seen him for months, he insisted.  He was unaware that he had been killed until the Guardia Civil went to look for him, he claimed.