Spanish PM to address hate crime

SPANISH prime minister Pedro Sanchez is convening an urgent meeting of a committee that oversees efforts to fight hate crime after a brutal attack on a 20-year-old man in Madrid.

Hooded attackers beat a man the Spanish capital, and used a knife to carve a slur on one of his buttocks.

Mr Sanchez wants to “take a personal lead” on the issue and will attend the meeting, government spokeswoman Isabel Rodriguez said after a cabinet meeting.

She said that “an attack like this ... alarms us all as a society”.

In the attack, the assailants first shouted anti-gay profanities at the man, before slashing his mouth with a knife and then using it to etch a slur on his buttock.