four year prison sentence handed down to the owner of a bar and restaurant which was causing excessive noise

The sentence issued by the Barcelona Provincial Court has now been confirmed by the Supreme Court in Spain

The Supreme Court has confirmed a four year prison sentence handed down to the owner of a bar and restaurant which was causing excessive noise in an area of Barcelona.

The high court found the establishment lacking measures demanded by law, and guilty of a crime against natural resources and the environment.

The owner will also have to compensate four neighbours with amounts of between 6,000 € and 10,000 €.

The Supreme Court thus supports the ruling from the Provincial Court in Barcelona.

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Benalmádena Town Hall will have to compensate a local Dutch family for the noise coming from the Puerto Marina.

The couple have been awarded more than 15,000 € for the noise from bars in the port, which dates back some eight years

The case dates back to 1999, but the sentence has only just been announced, ordering the council to pay 15,175€.

The Dutch couple purchased a flat in the Marina, with the intention of enjoying the summer there and renting the flat out for the rest of the year, but they say they had to soundproof their home and return the rent to ten people after three pubs opened below them.

Eight years after making their complaint to the courts in Málaga, they have now been told they have won the case. The 15,000 € goes to cover the soundproofing costs and to compensate for the rental money retuned to clients.

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The British on the Costa Del Sol

As the first major ethnographic study of British migrants in Spain, The British on the Costa Del Sol is to be welcomed for the light it sheds on an important but hitherto poorly researched subject. It is a valuable addition to the literature on ethnicity and European migration, as well as on tourism in its mass and long-stay forms. As a pleasant bonus, it also happens to be a very enjoyable read.

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They insist that their lives in Spain are good and that no one ever wants to go home, while individuals are choosing to go home every day.

They don't integrate, yet say they do, or that their children do. They construct and reconstruct strong community boundaries yet talk of community as if it includes the Spanish as well as other nationalities. They deny their isolation. They live fun and leisured lives, often denying or understating the work that goes into the construction of community. They insist that their lives in Spain are good and that no one ever wants to go home, while individuals are choosing to go home every day. They deny their boredom and suppress their loneliness as this contradicts the image they wish to portray of a happy, friendly and exciting experience."

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"Prince of Marbella" because of his opulent lifestyle

Spanish court authorized Friday the extradition of Syrian arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar to the United States on charges of conspiring to provide weapons to Colombian guerrillas. US authorities say Kassar agreed to sell machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, millions of rounds of ammunition and surface-to-air missile systems to the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) between 2006 and May of this year. Prosecutors in New York have charged him with conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a terrorist organization, money laundering, and conspiracy to acquire an anti-aircraft missile and to kill US nationals. Kassar, a longtime resident of Spain, has been in jail since he was arrested on June 8 after flying into Madrid airport on a domestic flight. US prosecutors say the FARC wanted to use the weapons to fight Amercian forces aiding Colombia in its battle against drug traffickers. Kassar allegedly also offered 1,000 fighters, plastic explosives, and detonators to use against the US armed forces, who have been in Colombia since 2000. Kassar, dubbed the "Prince of Marbella" because of his opulent lifestyle, faces life imprisonment if convicted

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Disco Inferno, is the 70's / 80's bar

Disco Inferno, is the 70's / 80's bar, in my opinion its one of the best places to go in the port as it is the least pretencious.
Must also mention that Sean Connery does not have a yacht in the port, this one of Marbella's oldest tales......
All of the large yachts are Arab owed and derive from oil money, simple as that!
Also, if you do happen to want to watch any sports whilst your staying, I recommend a bar called Bar Cheers, it became my Spanish local (no lager louts) its between Puerto Banus and San Pedro (only 5€ taxi from Puerto Banus)

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Best Bars in Puerto Banus

Best Bars in Puerto Banus
For hotties & beautiful people
Sinatras Bar in Puerto Banus - small bar, gud funky music
2 bars either side of Sinatras which are full of our age group - also very gud...
Linkers is a fun bar but younger and is located the street behind Sinatras...a small skinny cobbled stoned street full of bars, mini clubs and pizza take outs etc....parisien feel to this street actually!
Glam is the name of a good nite club, its big with a price tag of 20euros admission (includes 1 drink), at main Roundabout beside taxi rank - open til 6am
Olivia Valiere is my favourite night club- bit like American spirit however its 60euros admission and 20 euros for 1 vodka & coke is an expensive night out - unsure of your budget?
Do note its expensive to sit beside dance floor- most expensive drink - 16,000 euros for a fine bottle of champers
Dreamers is a gud spot
Dont go to Scream-bad night club with awful house music- rip off, tiny, pokey room called a club more of a drug fest, vile place wit odd vile people!

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radars installed in helicopters

Those little devices that warn drivers they are approaching speed radars will soon be made obsolete when the Traffic Authority implements its new method of hunting down speed hogs - by radars installed in helicopters. And Malaga will be one of the first provinces to get the service. The helicopters can nail cars with accuracy from a height of 300 metres and at a distance of one kilometre.

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massages on the town’s beaches

In a joint operation, the National and Local Police in Marbella arrested 17 Chineses nationals last week for giving massages on the town’s beaches without the necessary licences. Two of them were illegally in the country and are in the process of being expelled. The other 15 have their papers in order and were released without charges. A Town Hall spokesman said the operation formed part of this year’s Beach Safety Plan and warned people they were putting their health at risk when they accepted the services of the beach “masseurs”.

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el camino de los ingleses

Antonio Banderas made a film a few months ago called “El Camino de los Ingleses”, the Englishmen’s road. Many people must have wondered about this “road”, which does exist. It all started when George William Grice-Hutchinson, a London lawyer, bought a finca in the Churriana area in 1926. He was very kind to the local people who worked for him, as a well as those who didn’t. When the Civil War broke out in 1936, Grice-Hutchinson helped 80 people escape the wrath of the Republican militia in Malaga, taking them on his yacht Honey Bee to Gibraltar. After Franco’s troops took the area, Grice-Hutchinson then helped many Republicans to escape. After the war, when the area was ravaged by famine and disease, the Grice-Hutchinson family shared out a considerable sum of money - 12,000 pesetas, which was a fortune in those days - among poor families every month. They also bought an X-ray machine to detect the tuberculosis which was rife in the area at the time. The road all these needy people took to the finca was officially called Paseo de Grice-Hutchinson, but the local people knew it as “el camino de los ingleses”, which eventually became the set for the Banderas film. His daughter Marjorie lived in Malaga until her death four years ago.

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drug trafficking is a major issue in Cádiz

police figures indicating that 77 per cent of all hashish seized in Spain is confiscated in the province of Andulcia, has called upon the Government to carry out a major campaign against drug trafficking. The provincial government agrees that drug trafficking is a major issue in Cádiz and in Andalucía as a whole, and indicates that it is already utilising multiple resources to combat the problem.

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Illegal betting on the Costa del Sol bars uncovered in a National Police operation

Illegal betting on the Costa del Sol bars uncovered in a National Police operation
news date: Monday, April 02, 2007


National Police officers from the eight Andalusian provinces have broken up an illegal betting network which was operating in bars on the Costa del Sol run by British citizens.

Around 30 people are implicated and they could face fines of between 30,000 and 300,000 euros.
Police discovered that illegal betting was taking place in seven bars: four in Benalmadena, two in Fuengirola and one in Torremolinos.

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UK Citizen

who has not been named for legal reasons, who stood accused of murdering a married couple of the same nationality, with whom he lived in Mijas, has been found guilty by the jury.
The slaying took place on March 18, 2005 at the couple’s house in Mijas. The events happened after an argument between the three. First the wife was killed in the home then the husband fled as far as the road where he was stabbed to death. Investigators found 68 stab wounds on his body. The accused man then allegedly set fire to the house, which was completely destroyed, in an attempt to hide evidence. The woman’s body was so badly burned it was only identified after forensic tests.
The Briton is said to have a criminal record in the UK and he has served sentences for these previous crimes. He has denied having murdered the couple, and says he was very good friends with them and refutes ever having had a row with the husband and wife.Now the jury has reached a guilty verdict the man will be sentenced, probably this week. The prosecutor has sought a 28-year prison term, 26 year for the murders and another two for the damage to the house. He will also have to pay compensation to the family of the murdered couple, although the exact amount still has to be decided by the court.

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Nearly a third of all crimes committed in the province of Málaga last year occurred during July, August and September

Nearly a third of all crimes committed in the province of Málaga last year occurred during July, August and September, according to data from Spain's Home Office. As populations boom in Benalmádena (80,000 in winter to 160,000 in summer), Torremolinos (52,000 to 300,000), Marbella (110,000 to 500,000) and Vélez-Málaga (45,000 to 200,000), criminals are attracted to the relatively easy targets posed by tourists in town for a little fun in the sun.

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The notorious Nazi sympathiser, Gerd Honsik,

The notorious Nazi sympathiser, Gerd Honsik, was arrested in Málaga yesterday on an international arrest warrant issued in Austria. Honsik was sentenced to serve eighteen months in jail by a Vienna court in 1992 for repeatedly denying the holocaust and that the Third Reich used gas chambers to exterminate the Jewish people. He never served this sentence after escaping to Spain where he set up home.

The opinions were expressed between 1986 and 1989 in his book 'The Absolution of Hitler', and in the 'Halt' magazine in which he stated that: "there is absolutely no evidence of the existence of gas chambers" and "the chimney of the supposed Auschwitz gas chamber rises just thirty sad centimetres above a one-storey house."

The Spanish High Court turned down an application to extradite Honsik in November 1995 on the grounds that legislation outlawing justifying genocide was not introduced in Spain until May 1995, and does not apply to crimes committed before this date.

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A man was arrested in Torremolinos yesterday after attacking his girlfriend and her 21 year old daughter with an axe.

A man was arrested in Torremolinos yesterday after attacking his girlfriend and her 21 year old daughter with an axe.

The incident occurred at an address in the El Calvario district at around 11.30am.

The elder of the two women sustained serious neck wounds while her daughter is in a critical condition following surgery.

Both women were taken to University Clinic Hospital in Málaga

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Long-time Spanish resident Monzer al-Kassar

A Syrian businessman wanted in the US on charges of conspiring to provide weapons to Marxist guerillas in Colombia challenged his extradition request Thursday in a Spanish court.

Long-time Spanish resident Monzer al-Kassar has been in jail since he was arrested in June as he arrived at Madrid airport on an internal flight.

New York prosecutors have charged him with conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, money laundering and conspiracy to acquire an anti-aircraft missile and kill US nationals.

They say rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, wanted to use the weapons he supplied to fight US forces aiding Colombia in its battle against drug traffickers.

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The hunt is on for a large black panther spotted by a member of the public in a park near the Los Claveles residential estate in La Cala de Mijas at a

The hunt is on for a large black panther spotted by a member of the public in a park near the Los Claveles residential estate in La Cala de Mijas at around 7pm last night.

Since then, three other people have corroborated the sighting.

Suggestions that the animal was a large dog were ruled out after the man, who managed to photograph it on his mobile phone, told how he saw it climb a tree.

Several Guardia Civil environmental officers armed with tranquiliser guns were deployed to hunt down the animal, but the search was called off for safety reasons at nightfall.

A Guardia Civil spokesman said that the animal probably escaped from a private property.

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"In Franco's day, you'd already be dead, you commie poofter."

A corporal who was denied permission to take the regulation fifteen-day leave of absence to marry his transsexual sweetheart was told by his commanding officer, a Spanish Navy captain: "In Franco's day, you'd already be dead, you commie poofter."

The corporal, who is seeking political support for his request for a transfer away from the El Ferrol navy base, was subsequently demoted and subjected to continual bullying.

He is currently off work suffering from depression and is receiving psychological counselling.

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Trawler nets grisly catch

The crew of a fishing vessel based in Carboneras found a badly decomposed corpse in their nets as they were fishing in waters off San José (Níjar, Almería) last Monday lunchtime.

The crew advised the Guardia Civil, who have confirmed that the dead man, who has not yet been identified, was wearing tracksuit bottoms, a blue shirt and a jersey.

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THE N-340 ROAD BETWEEN MÁLAGA CITY AND MARBELLA ACCOUNTS FOR MORE DEATHS THAN ANY OTHER SECTION OF ROAD IN THE PROVINCE OF MÁLAGA.

Between 1989 and 2001, road deaths in Málaga Province have almost halved from 228 to 117, but mortality figures for the first four months of this year are showing a worrying increase.

Last year, Málaga urban roads and ring road accounted for 21 deaths; Marbella counted 21 fatalities. The N-340 between the two towns recorded another nine deaths with Torremolinos (4), Benalmádena (3) and Fuengirola (2). Estepona reported nine road deaths and Manilva two. The area from Málaga to Manilva totalled 62 of the province's 117 road deaths.

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Mr Checa making Torredonjimeno the laughing stock of Spain

In Regina’s bar in the main square of Torredonjimeno on Thursday night, Rafael Sanchez, a farm worker, clutched his glass of beer with white knuckles.

I am not going home. They can’t make me. This town has gone totally silly, he said defiantly.

It was the first night of a new regime in which the town’s mayor, Javier Checa, has banned men from going out on Thursday evenings. All men found out of their houses between 9pm and 2am on a Thursday will be fined five euros.

Mr Checa said the new policy was designed to free women of domestic shackles and to raise people’s awareness of sexual equality, but the scheme has bitterly divided the town. He expects the town’s menfolk to stay at home to look after the children and do the washing up.

In the bars, people muttered darkly about Mr Checa making Torredonjimeno the laughing stock of Spain. I would send men who break the ban to jail if I could, but there is no jail in the town, said Mr Checa.

Steadfastly ignoring the ban, Mr Sanchez said that people did not mind that Mr Checa had declared himself to be a homosexual, But this is going too far, he said, and next he wants to ban television one day a month.

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Timothy O’Toole and James Carabini were arrested in Marbella and Ian Davenport was detained up the coast in Frigiliana, near Nerja.

The tobacco smugglers who made their money in Galicia, in northwest Spain, now realise that there are far more generous profits in handling cocaine shipments from Colombia and have formed alliances with foreign gangs. Spanish police and British customs officers allege that this is precisely what the latest three British detainees were up to. Timothy O’Toole and James Carabini were arrested in Marbella and Ian Davenport was detained up the coast in Frigiliana, near Nerja.

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Richard Monteith, 50, from Whitley Bay, is to plead guilty to murder.

Richard Monteith, 50, from Whitley Bay, is to plead guilty to murder.

Spanish police have charged Monteith and his wife Anne-Marie, with the murder of 63-year-old Diana Dyson, from Sheffield.

But according to Stephen Jakobi, a director of Fair Trials Abroad, Monteith has confessed to the contract killing of Mrs Dyson in the Spanish resort of Torremolinos in March 2002.


Richard Monteith is being held in Spain

Mr Jakobi said Monteith told his Spanish lawyer he had been offered up to £30,000 to carry out the killing.

He said the charity would still act for Monteith's 48-year-old wife as long as she maintained her innocence.

Mr Jakobi said: "Some admissions have been made. The Spanish lawyer said that developments in DNA testing had led to a confession.

"She said what he said was that it was a contract killing and that he was offered a large sum of money to do it."

Mr Jakobi confirmed the amount in question was between 25,000 and 50,000 euros (£16,600 - £33,200).

Tests had shown the DNA of hair found under the victim's fingernails was Mr Monteith's.

'Serious crime'

He is now expected to plead guilty at the forthcoming trial, expected to take place in "a month or two".

But Mr Jakobi said he was worried about the possibility of Mrs Monteith receiving a fair hearing.

He added: "The concern is that there is no money to pay for the legal defence of Mrs Monteith, who still declares her innocence and whose husband still declares her innocence.

"The Spanish legal system is useless for serious crime. Only the young and inexperienced take legal aid cases. The rates are so rotten that serious lawyers don't do it.

"On a murder charge, particularly one where her husband has pleaded guilty, you need a good lawyer."

The couple have been held in prison in Malaga since being charged after Mrs Dyson's body was found in her apartment in Torremolinos on 10 March, 2002.

Detectives believed she was dead for four or five days before she was found.

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