POLICE on the Costa del Sol say a man who died after being tasered inside a Torremolinos phone shop on Sunday had threatened officers with scissors and screamed ‘Allahu Akbar’, an Arabic phrase meaning ‘God is the Greatest’.
The death of a 35-year-old Moroccan man known as Haitam has caused uproar in the local community, with family and friends demanding ‘justice’ and accusing agents from the Policia Nacional of ‘murder’.
But officers say the man, who died of a heart attack after being tasered, had been acting in an aggressive manner after allegedly attempting to rob a phone shop on Calle Hoyo.
According to the statements of six police officers involved in the incident, Haitam refused to comply with requests to drop a pair of scissors he was holding in one hand.
He was eventually disarmed before two officers attempted to hold him down.
They were unable to do so, and an officer subsequently fired his taser at close range.
Two more taser shots were fired before the man was handcuffed by four officers.
Police claim the man was in a state of ‘extreme agitation’ before collapsing – with officers requesting that security camera footage from the shop be included in the report.
Officers and paramedics began CPR but the man could not be revived.
According to a toxicology report, the man may have consumed drugs prior to the incident.
But Haitam’s family believe the police used undue force, telling local media: “The heart attack was not natural as the police are saying.
“Eight police officers were there with four taser pistols. This caused his heart to stop…no heart can resist that much electric shock.”
Dozens of handwritten signs have appeared at the scene of his death, transforming the shuttered shopfront into a shrine demanding ‘Justice for Haitam’.
Some notes taped to the metal shutters insist Haitam was only asking to borrow a phone charger when the situation spiralled out of control.
“The police killed him…and this place permitted it,” one note reads.
“Murdered by racism in cold blood,” another said.
The death has been likened to the case of George Floyd, an African-American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minnesota during an arrest in May 2020.
The murder led to worldwide protests against police brutality and racism under the ‘Black Lives Matter’ banner.
The secretary-general of far-left Podemos, Ione Belarra, said on X: “Saying that you ‘die’ of a heart attack while the police stop you is the same as saying that women ‘die’ at the hands of their partner while they’re beating them.
“They’re not deaths, they’re murders and this racist police violence that we have to stop now.”
The SUP police union has filed a criminal complaint against Belarra for defamation, serious insults and hate crimes against police officers.
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Always 2 sides to a story. It would be interesting to know if background checks of the victim come up with anything, ine way or the other.