Two arrested for Dutch man's murder on Mallorca; victim identified
Two suspects were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the death of a Dutch tourist on Mallorca on Friday. The victim is Wouter van Luijn, a 34-year-old film editor from Amsterdam, newspaper AD reports.
The local authorities believe that the two suspects were trying to rob the Dutch man, who was beaten when he resisted, according to the newspaper. The first suspect was arrested on Saturday, after he gave contradictory statements to the police. The second suspect was arrested based on information provided by the first suspect.
Spanish news site ultimahora.es reports that Van Luijn was at a party in Calvia on Thursday night. He decided to go buy drugs at 'drug neighborhood' San Banyo at around 4:00 a.m. on Friday morning, and took two Spanish speaking Pakistanis with him to act as interpreters. According to the site, the Amsterdam man wanted to buy cocaine from a dealer and was showing his wallet. Van Luijn had 700 euros in his wallet. He resisted when the two suspects tried to take the money and the two assaulted him. One of the blows caused an aneurysm in the Amsterdam man.
According to ultimahora.es, there are suspicions that Van Luijn used cocaine before the robbery, which deteriorated his state of health. An autopsy showed that Van Luijn only sustained bruises in his face, that likely would not have caused his death had he been in better condition.
Tijl Beckand, who knew Van Luijn for over 10 years, thinks that the 'drug story' is being blown out of proportion, he said to AD. "I seriously do not think he had a drug problem", Beckand said. "He worked so hard. If you look at how many Dutch people from every part of society take a pill, or a joint, or something like cocaine, you are talking about thousands of people. I do not want to speculate about what happened there, but I think Wouter really did not know that was a bad neighborhood and just did not know where he was being taken. You are on Mallorca, partying, ask if you can still get something somewhere and then things go completely wrong."
