A MAN has been arrested in Marbella after his trans partner was fatally stabbed in their home in San Pedro Alcantara.
Police were called to a property on Calle Castilla, in San Pedro Alcantara — a town within Marbella’s municipal boundary, around 9km west of the town’s old centre — at 4.15pm on Monday, August 10.
Paramedics who arrived alongside officers could not save the victim, who had suffered multiple stab wounds.
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She was around 35 and had been living with the man now under arrest.
Investigators initially treated the case as a suspected act of gender violence, the term Spain uses specifically for violence by a man against a current or former female partner, which is tracked in its own statistics and routed to specialist courts.
By Tuesday morning, Policia Nacional sources had reclassified it as domestic violence instead.
Domestic violence is a broader category, covering violence between any family or household members, and unlike gender violence does not automatically carry the same dedicated legal protections or count towards Spain’s annual femicide toll.
Officers say the reclassification follows confirmation that the victim, who lived and identified as a woman, had not completed the legal process to change her registered sex.
As things stand, her death will not be added to Malaga province’s official 2026 gender violence count, which currently stands at six killings.
An autopsy is still to be carried out to establish the exact nature of her injuries and the weapon used.
The arrested man, 59, remains in police custody and was not expected to appear before a judge on Tuesday.
The case follows the killing of a Hungarian woman, 45, in Benahavis three weeks ago.
Benahavis, a hillside town inland from Marbella, saw that case confirmed as gender violence and moved to a specialist court, with the man accused now held in custody without bail.
No court date has yet been set for the man arrested over Monday’s stabbing in San Pedro Alcantara.
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