Laurence Dollimore
AN BRITISH ex-rock star is suing the Spanish government after being fingered for a murder he didn’t commit.
Gary Owens, from Stockport, will also sue the British government after what says has been a 25-year nightmare.
Owens was twice arrested and held in jail on remand in 1991 and in 2008, on suspicion of playing a part in the death of a wealthy Norwegian club owner on the Costa del Sol.
In total he spent almost three years in prison.
The guitarist, whose band A II Z made the UK heavy metal charts in 1980 and played with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden, has finally been told there is no case against him.
Owens said: “We want an investigation at the national level in the UK and Spain. I have been unjustly treated by the Spanish and British justice systems. We are claiming compensation from the Spanish system for false imprisonment and human rights breaches.
“I want to know how the Spanish justice system can destroy my life…It is a total disgrace.”
The body of Mr Heta, 33, the owner of a nightclub and recording studio in Marbella, was found down a well in 1991.
Owens was first arrested after a Spanish policeman tapped on the window of him and his partner Jayne’s Renault hire car in Tenerife.
A shotgun was thrust through and was just inches away from his face before 15 officers swarmed around the vehicle and arrested him on April 2 1991.
Eleven other people were arrested in connection with the murder but it remains unsolved.
Owens is calling for a public inquiry into why he was wrongfully imprisoned.
The UK Foreign Office said: “We provided consular assistance to a British man and his family after he was imprisoned in Spain in November 2009.”
A brown dwarf is a star too.