A 25-year-old has been arrested in Spain for stabbing an editor at a daily newspaper days after the outlet reported on a previous knifing attack he had been convicted of.
Andrés de Vicente Fuentes of Pontevedra reportedly barged into the offices of La Voz de Galicia “visibly upset” on Friday afternoon and “began to yell at an administration employee” about a story published by the outlet earlier that week, according to La Voz. The man then revealed “hidden a kitchen rolling pin and a knife, with which he began to hit some of the computer equipment that was in the area of the entrance,” the outlet said.
When the administration employee fled the scene to a nearby supermarket, “the attacker took the opportunity to access the newsroom and destroy everything that was found in his path,” the daily added.
ADVERTISEMENT
Making his way through the offices of the newspaper, Fuentes eventually spotted newspaper editor Alfredo López Penide working at his desk. Penide “tried to stop him” and a struggle ensued, during which “the journalist suffered various cuts and blows, before managing to get away from the assailant and go out into the street, to take refuge in the supermarket where his partner had taken refuge,” according the newspaper.
“At the entrance, he met two other editors who were returning to work… and they took the opportunity to lock the outside so that he could not flee until the arrival of the police.”
The outlet added that it took “the intervention of six agents” to subdue Fuentes after the attack, which left the newspaper editor recovering in a hospital after receiving 10 stitches to his hand.
“I am fine and I want to thank all the displays of affection that I have received,” Penide said in a statement.
The Friday incident adds to a lengthy list of criminal assaults involving Fuentes. Earlier this week, the Spanish man was sentenced for his role in a 2020 knife attack at a bar—the subject of the article Fuentes was allegedly complaining about during his tirade at the La Voz office.
Track Record
According to Europa Press, Fuentes attacked a man with a knife while screaming “you are all going to die!” after being asked to leave a bar in the city of Ourense. The victim reportedly suffered an injury to his head, and Fuentes—who fled the scene after the attack—was arrested minutes later with “bloodstains on his clothes and on his hands,” according to police sources.
On Tuesday, Fuentes “was sentenced to pay a fine of 540 euros for the crime of injury and another 90 for the slight crime of threats with an extenuating factor for psychic disturbance” for the bar incident, El Espanol reported.
The most high-profile violent incident involving Fuentes took place in December 2015, when the then 17-year-old punched former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy after asking to take a photo with him at an election event.
The prime minister—who was campaigning in Pontevedra at the time—was left with a bruised face and broken glasses after the attack, for which Fuentes was sentenced to two years in a juvenile center.
In the aftermath of the La Voz stabbing, the company said in a statement that “the leadership of La Voz de Galicia showed its absolute solidarity with Alfredo López Penide and its concern for the events, and conveyed its full support to its colleagues in the Pontevedra delegation,” adding that “numerous media outlets have expressed their solidarity” with the wounded journalist.
