Spain refuses to deport man suspected of tourist murder in Murcia
A Murcia court has ruled against extraditing the suspect to Singapore, where he would face the death penalty
A Spanish judge has refused a request to deport Mitchell Ong, the man accused of murdering Singaporean tourist Audrey Fang, whose body was discovered in a remote field in Abanilla, Murcia, last April.
Cieza’s Investigative Court Number Three dismissed the application submitted by the National Police and backed by the victim’s family, deciding that the legal conditions for expulsion have not been met.
According to the court, Mr Ong himself has not requested deportation, and sending him back to Singapore could potentially expose him to the death penalty, an outcome Spanish law does not permit.
Instead, the judge ruled that the accused must remain in Spain, where he faces a minimum sentence of ten years if convicted.
The deportation had been pushed by the Fang family, represented by lawyer Manuel Martínez, who is acting as a private prosecutor in the case. However, with this latest ruling, both Mr Martínez and the state prosecutor’s office are now focusing their efforts on securing a murder conviction, which in Spain carries a prison sentence of 15 to 25 years.
Despite Mr Ong being in the country illegally, the court opted to deny the expulsion order issued by the Government Delegation, which had also barred the suspect from re-entering Spain for the next ten years.
Since then, in a letter to the judge, immigration authorities asked for a clear legal justification for blocking the deportation given what they described as “exceptional circumstances.”
Mr Ong remains in pre-trial detention at Sangonera La Verde prison in Murcia.
During a hearing earlier this year under Article 25 of the Jury Law, the Public Prosecutor's Office formally accused him of murder, a position fully supported by the private prosecution.
His court-appointed attorney, María Jesús Ruiz de Castañeda, argued for the case to be dismissed entirely, but the court has decided the proceedings will continue.
For now, the suspect stays behind bars in Spain rather than facing the death penalty in Singapore, where he is set to face trial in what is becoming one of the country’s most closely watched criminal cases of the year.
In other news: Spain and all of Europe bracing for bird flu pandemic
Image: Guardia Civil
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