Man shot dead in Barcelona last week wrongly identified as brother of Irish ex-footballer

By Gerard Couzens

The man shot dead in Barcelona last week is an Eastern European on the run from Belgian police, it has emerged.

The victim had been identified initially by some media as the brother of an Irish ex-footballer before it was subsequently reported he had gone missing from his Costa del Sol home, but was not the man shot in front of a police station in the Catalan city last Wednesday.

The regional Mossos d’Esquadra police force is still refusing to confirm the nationality of the man killed in the professional-style hit, carried out by an assassin in shorts and a T-shirt filmed carrying the murder weapon hidden under a bike helmet in his hand.

But respected Catalan crime reporters identified him overnight as a Serbian national with a European Arrest Warrant issued by a court in Belgium hanging over his head.

He is said to have been identified with the help of Interpol via his fingerprints.

His formal identification was delayed because of several false identities he was using to move around Europe with.

No arrests have yet been made, part of the reason police are declining to make any comment for the time being, while the investigation remains open and subject to a court secrecy order putting an effective gagging order over civil servants.

The victim was shot in the neck last Wednesday morning in Balmes Street in the centre of Barcelona.

The killer fled the scene on foot before leaving a bike helmet he had been carrying in his hand at a nearby bus stop with the murder weapon hidden under it.

A woman who found the gun and alerted cops also discovered a mobile phone, which police are currently analysing.

The gangland-style assassination occurred while Pope Leo XIV was in the middle of a two-day visit to Barcelona before he travelled to the Canary Islands.

In its only comment so far on the horror shooting, the Mossos d’Esquadra said shortly after the broad-daylight murder: “The Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) is investigating the violent death of a man on Balmes Street in the Sarria-Sant Gervasi district of Barcelona.

“At around 9.50am on Wednesday the Mossos d'Esquadra received reports from several witnesses alerting them to a person injured by a firearm.

“Several public safety units were dispatched to the scene.

“The Medical Emergency System (SEM) arrived at the scene with two units. Upon arrival, they confirmed the person's death.

“The DIC has opened an investigation to clarify the causes.

“The investigation is under judicial secrecy, but investigators have ruled out any connection between the incident and the events being held to mark the Pope’s visit.

There have been six deaths by firearms in Catalonia, the region Barcelona is part of, so far this year which is two more than the whole of last year.

On March 20th, a Romanian man died in a shooting at a bar in Badalona near Barcelona. On March 28, a young Dominican man was shot dead in a park in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat.

On April 14th, a member of a Montenegrin mafia was killed on the terrace of a bar in Poblenou, Barcelona.

On May 16th, a 43-year-old Spanish man was shot several times in the head and killed on Carrer de la Mineria, in Barcelona’s Zona Franca district.

On June 7th, on the same street, a Serbian man died from a gunshot wound to the head.

A secrecy order is a tool commonly used in Spain to protect judicial probes especially in their infancy, and limits the amount of information civil servants can give out, although the Mossos d'Esquadra also generally never give out information on the nationalities of suspects they have arrested or crime victims.

The whereabouts of the 37-year-old Irish dad-of-two initially identified in some media reports as the Barcelona murder victim is still unclear.

Relatives of the soccer star’s brothers are said to have flown out to Marbella earlier this week to aid Spanish police in their inquiries.

Cops on the Costa del Sol have yet to make any comment.

The man is known to gardai for links to organised crime and in particular for ties to the Kinahan cartel.

He was one of two men arrested after a March 11th, 2024, gun attack on British-run bar-restaurant La Sala in Marbella and later released on bail pending an ongoing court-led criminal probe.