Gay man who claimed thugs carved a homophobic slur into his buttocks admits he LIED and his boyfriend did it with his consent
- Man, 20, had ‘maricon’ – the Spanish equal of ‘fa***t’ – scored into his buttocks
- He said eight masked assailants attacked him outside Madrid apartment block
- He now says he made up the assault and his partner did it with his consent
A gay man who claimed homophobic thugs carved a slur into his buttocks with a knife has admitted he lied and said his boyfriend did it with his consent.
The 20-year-old had told detectives he was assaulted at the entrance to his apartment block in the Madrid neighbourhood of Malasana.
The ‘eight assailants’ blamed for the attack were said to have cut his lower lip with a knife and then scored the word ‘maricon’ into his buttocks – the Spanish equivalent of ‘fa###t’.
People march through Madrid with rainbow flags to celebrate LGBTQIA+ pride in July 2016
The incident shocked Spain with regional and national politicians being holding debate about the apparent homophobic attack.
Government spokesman Isabel Rodriguez voiced her ‘utter condemnation’ of the violence after a weekly cabinet meeting.
Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez also called for an urgent meeting of the hate crimes committee for the end of the week.
But doubts arose after police said they had found had no evidence to back up his story on CCTV cameras in the area.
Officers said they were probing whether the incident had been a ‘revenge attack’.
But later on Wednesday, the young man at the centre of the shocking incident changed his version of events.
He admitted he had made up the gang assault, and confessed to consenting to being scarred with a knife by a person described as his ‘partner’.
Sources close to the case said his admission would not stop the criminal inquiry from continuing to see if anyone should face charges.
One said: ‘This new information will not affect the development of the investigation and the judicial proceedings.’
In March police in Majorca arrested seven people accused of torturing a man said to have offered strangers cash online to give him an extreme makeover.
Activists say attacks on LGBTQ people are increasing in Spain. They claim that official statistics capture only a fraction of the problem because many incidents are not reported (file photo)
Reports at the time said they made him walk round a supermarket dressed like a woman, tattooed penises on his face, superglued his lips together, sewed his toes together and shaved his eyebrows off.
Detectives said the 34-year-old, who has learning difficulties and mobility problems, was humiliated during a three-day ordeal which began with him being doused in cold water and made to stand naked on a rooftop terrace until he became hypothermic.
The horrific treatment officers said he was subsequently subjected to occurred at a flat in the Majorcan city of Manacor.
There has been no official comment so far from police in the Spanish capital to the latest reports about the gang knife attack being a figment of the so-called ‘victim’s’ imagination.
It was not immediately clear if he would face charges for wasting police time. The Madrid incident came two months after Samuel Luiz, 24, was beaten to death near a nightclub in the northern city of La Coruna in an attack friends of the victim claimed was motivated by homophobia.
The attack was denounced by Mr Sanchez as ‘savage and merciless’ and brought huge crowds onto the streets in protest. Several people have been arrested in connection with the sickening crime.
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