Costa Blanca Olive Press - Issue 24

OLIVE PRESS

The

COSTA BLANCA

Battle to save the Spanish language hits the streets

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Vol. 1 Issue 24 www.theolivepress.es

Your expat

voice in Spain

February 20th - March 4th, 2020

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Dodgy deals, the mafia and how squatters are now ‘owned by the banks

Expat tragedy SHOCKING: Alina’s body had been bound and wrapped in blood soaked blanket while (right) Karvink taken away by the police

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HAPPIER TIM

ES: Alina and

The Spanish property battle between two British dukes See page 10

How Spain’s Wikiloc is taking over the world

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EXCLUSIVE By Joshua Parfitt

THE wedding date had been set and the invites recently sent out. So friends were left stunned when the body of Alina Mocanu was found in a rubbish bin on Monday - with her expat fiance now accused of killing her. The mother of a 14-year-old son was discovered by dustmen at 8.10am wrapped in a blood-soaked blanket. She had been bound in ropes and had deep wounds to her forearms and to her neck. The whole Moraira community is still in shock after it emerged her husband-to-be - a well known local estate agent - had admitted to the brutal slaying. The 36-year-old from Calarasi, near Bucharest, in Romania, had been dating Dutch expat Arthur Karvink, 59, for two years. The pair worked together in a front line estate agency, just yards from the beach of the idyllic resort town. But now the ex-marine is facing life in prison after turning himself into the Guardia Civil in nearby El

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Alina, 36, found dead in bin was due to be married to well known Dutch estate agent now accused of killing her

Portet at 12.30pm on Tuesday. He quickly confessed to the horrific crime. The next day, videos circulated of a man, face concealed, being manhandled by detectives into the Brilliant Real Estate office, that had been founded by Karvink, back in 2016. Shouts of ‘Mordenaar’ (‘murderer’ in Dutch) and ‘Asesino’ were hurled at the hooded figure on Moraira’s central Avenida Madrid. Reports later appeared of the prime suspect admitting he had killed Alina in the office, where they worked together, with a kitchen knife following an argument on Sunday. Karvink’s case will now be heard at Denia’s Court of Violence Against Women. It it not the first time the for-

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most 30 years and so I know how to recognize the symptoms. “It’s really sad about what happened, but he was sick in the head.” Questions are now being raised about the authorities’ intervewntion as Alina becomes the 11th woman to die at the hands of a partner in 2020 so far. Moraira Town Hall declared a day of mourning on Wednesday, this week, while Alicante’s Town Hall held a minute’s silence in Alina’s honour. “From the youngest among us, we must put a stop to this social disease of gender violence,” said Alicante’s deputy mayor Mari Carmen Sanchez. “We cannot continue having years as black as this one has begun. “We must be totally intolerant – if you have any doubt or suspicion about this type of situation, I encourage you to report it and prevent victims from being silent. We must use all the mechanisms available to us by the administrations to stop the figures of this social scourge from rising.”

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mer Marine Corps soldier has been in the dock for attacking his would-be bride. A spokesperson for the Valencian Courts of Justice told the Olive Press, this week, that police had actually raced to an incident at Karvink’s house in the early hours of June 30, last year. A Denia judge went on to issue a restraining order of 300m to protect Alina from her fiance. He also ruled zero communication between the pair, in the run up to Karvink’s trial at Benidorm’s criminal court no 2. However, Alina refused to testify and the case collapsed due to lack of evidence. A friend of the couple told the Olive Press that Karvink was ‘prone to aggressive episodes’. The Dutchman, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “He got strange and aggressive with me on two occasions and I immediately recognised he had this behavioral issue.” He put the issue down to his tours of duty in trouble spots around the world as a soldier. “I am dealing with two other friends with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder for al-

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