Alex Trelinski
TWO men have been charged with robbing and sexually assaulting a woman, 25, in the Old Town area of Alicante.
One of the assailants went into the sea at Postiguet beach to hide from police and almost died of hypothermia.
The female victim was out partying in the Old Town and used an abandoned area to go to the toilet.
Two men, aged 25 and 27, spotted her and suddenly grabbed her neck.
One of the individuals sexually assaulted her but she managed to scream and the two men yanked her handbag before running off.
Two people helped her and called the Policia Nacional, who acting on the victim’s description of the assailants, immediately went into action to try to apprehend them.
Not long after, the men were spotted and ran away from police towards Postiguet beach.
Officers caught one of them on the El Postiguet walkway in possession of the woman’s mobile phone and driving license.
His colleague leapt five metres down from the walkway onto the beach and then ran into the sea.
He looked to swim away and hide but Maritime Rescue and the Fire Department responded to police calls by forming a perimeter to avoid the criminal escaping the area.
Policia Nacional officers boarded a firefighting vessel to find the man who was spotted clinging onto a buoy with symptoms of severe hypothermia.
But for the officers finding him, he would almost certainly have died.
He was formally arrested on sexual assault and robbery charges before an ambulance took him to Alicante General Hospital for treatment.
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