Buenos Aires murder suspect arrested on bus
Jamie Johnson and Emily Hart in Buenos Aires A MAN sought by police in Argentina on suspicion of killing a British businessman outside a five-star hotel has been arrested, as police linked a violent crime gang to another attack on a British tourist in Buenos Aires.
Angel Eduardo Lozano Azuaje, a 21-year-old Venezuelan, was intercepted by officers 1,000 miles north of the capital, on a bus heading towards Bolivia.
Police sources told the Clarín newspaper that the suspect was captured after his girlfriend was interviewed by officials.
Police suspect that he was one of the men filmed getting out of a grey Chevrolet outside the Faena hotel in Buenos Aires where Matthew Gibbard was killed and his stepson injured.
The suspect had entered the country illegally via its northern border just two weeks earlier, it has been claimed. He will be taken to Buenos Aires and held until a court date is set.
Eight people are now in custody, including the man thought to be the gang’s leader. Police are still hunting more suspects, including the gang’s “marker” – the individual tasked with observing tourists at Ezeiza Airport, and choosing the victims of subsequent thefts.
It has emerged that two days before the fatal shooting of Mr Gibbard, another British tourist, named locally as Artur Tomala, 43, was tracked from the airport travelling towards the upmarket Las Cañitas area of Buenos Aires with his two daughters and Argentine wife.
He was held up and robbed of his Rolex Daytona, worth more than £20,000. According to Télam, a local news agency, Mr Tomala was hit across the face with the butt of a pistol and over the head with a motorbike helmet.
One man was arrested at the scene, and police sources say he is linked to the gang involved in Saturday’s murder, through Facebook.
Mr Gibbard, a property magnate, and his family arrived at Ezeiza in Buenos Aires on Saturday morning, and were identified as targets because of their “highend watches”, according to a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice and Security in Argentina.
CCTV shows that they were followed to their hotel across town, where Mr Gibbard, 50, and his stepson Stefan Zone, 28, were held up and shot while trying to fight off their attackers.
Yesterday, Tom Hartley, a friend of Mr Gibbard, described how he enjoyed fast cars and helicopters. “He had at least half a dozen Ferraris. He used to fly his own helicopter too, which he kept at his home,” he told The Times.