MADRID: A Spanish mother has confessed to gunning down a ruling-party politician in public in a long-planned act of personal vengeance that shocked the nation, a source close to the investigation said yesterday.
Isabel Carrasco, 59, renowned as a strong character who was Popular Party leader of the Leon provincial council, was shot repeatedly in broad daylight on Monday as she crossed a footbridge near her home in the northern city.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and other leading Spanish politicians suspended European election campaigning and joined mourning for Carrasco before her funeral in Leon on Tuesday.
A 55-year-old mother and her 35-year-old daughter, who had recently lost a bitter employment-related dispute with the Leon provincial council, were detained by police shortly after the shooting.
“The mother has confessed to being the author of the killing and also confessed that she had been planning to commit such an act for two years,” the source, who declined to be identified, said.
In a rapidly developing investigation, police said they had finally recovered the suspected murder weapon after it was handed in by a policewoman. Officers had been searching in vain for the gun, including in the Bernesga river which runs under the bridge where Carrasco was shot.
AFP
