SUSPECT’S DNA FOUND ON CAP TAKEN FROM GETAWAY CAR
»»lawyer rejects claim Quinn owned headwear »»Witness recalls how victim pleaded for life
THE man accused of assassinating Gary Hutch shook his head yesterday as clothes found in a “torched getaway car” were shown to a court.
Jurors were allowed to touch the charred garments it’s claimed were worn by James Quinn as he allegedly gunned down Gary Hutch at a residential estate on the Costa del Sol.
On the second day of the Malaga trial, the Dubliner looked on as a clerk opened up taped evidence bags and threw their contents on the floor in front of the witness stand.
Members of the jury compared the items to a new-looking baseball cap from which DNA had been obtained.
The court heard police matched it to 35-year-old Quinn after they snatched a bottle of water he had drunk from nearly a year after the murder on September 24, 2015. This led to his arrest. Defence lawyer Pedro Apalategui asked the Spanish court why the cap had only been mentioned in police reports after the DNA result and why it looked so different from the other badly-burnt clothes found in the BMW.
He suggested it was a “comfortable” explanation that enabled authorities to pin the blame on his client.
The lawyer added he dissented from the police view that one of the screenshots from CCTV cameras at the murder scene showed the killer wearing a baseball cap before he swapped it for a balaclava.
A Civil Guard officer involved in the early stages of the probe – referred to only by his service number – told the court they’d gone back over the footage after realising the cap’s importance.
He was followed by a Spanish National Police investigator who said: “Local police helped to put the fire out with an extinguisher and, although the upholstery inside was gutted, not everything was destroyed.
“There were some clothes on top of others and my understanding is they wouldn’t have received the same amount of heat.”
Earlier, a witness to the murder on the gated property in Miraflores near Fuengirola, where Hutch lived, told how he initially thought the two men were playing when he saw them running round the outdoor pool.
The court heard on Monday the 34-year-old was targeted in the garage under his ground-floor flat where his car was parked before being chased across the complex.
The witness, identified only by his first name Jose, gave evidence from behind a partially-open door screening him from the public gallery and the defendant.
He said: “I heard a loud noise and raced to the terrace and saw two men running round the swimming pool.
“I thought they were playing at first but then I saw one had a pistol in his hand and I realised it was something else.
“They reached a point where the victim had no way out and had to stop.
“He put his hands up and went, ‘No, no, no’ and then I heard two shots and saw him fall to the ground. The killer
MALAGA COURTROOM YESTERDAY
The victim had no way out.. he put his hands up & went ‘No, no, no’ WITNESS JOSE