Laid-off worker quizzed after Spain politician shot dead
Madrid (AFP) - Spanish police on Tuesday questioned a laid-off council worker and her mother suspected of gunning down a ruling party politician, a murder that halted Spain's European election campaigns.
Isabel Carrasco, 59, renowned as a strong character who was provincial head of the Popular Party in Leon, was shot repeatedly Monday on a footbridge in the northern city, police and witnesses said.
An interior ministry official said it appeared to be an act of personal vengeance, while newspapers highlighted concerns over public hatred of Spanish politicians after years of economic hardship and corruption scandals.
Newspapers splashed on their front pages images of Carrasco?s body lying under a white sheet on the bridge.
Police arrested the two suspects shortly after the shooting on Monday afternoon: a 35-year-old woman who lost her temporary job at the Leon council three years ago, and her 55-year-old mother.
Government officials said the women were the wife and daughter of a local police inspector.
The two -- Maria Montserrat Gonzalez Fernandez and her daughter Montserrat Triana Martinez Gonzalez -- are both members of the Popular Party, a local spokeswoman for the grouping said.
The daughter's temporary job with the council had expired when someone else was chosen for the position in 2011, a Leon city hall source told AFP.
But in addition to laying her off, the council then said it had mistakenly overpaid her 12,000 euros ($16,500) and wanted its money back.
"There was a series of legal hearings in the past few years which was finally won by the council," the source said on condition of anonymity.
"This woman had to return the money and it seems that was one of the reasons she had serious financial problems."
- Hunting for firearm -
The two suspects apparently had declined to give a statement to police, the source said. They are due to go before a judge in the coming days.
A police official who asked not to be named told AFP the mother and daughter remained in police custody in Leon.
Police said they were searching for the firearm used in the crime in the Bernesga river which runs under the bridge where Carrasco was shot.
Spain's ruling Popular Party and the opposition Socialist Party suspended campaigning for the May 25 European elections after the shooting.
A televised debate between candidates of the ruling party and the main opposition Socialist Party was postponed for two days until Thursday.
Mourning relatives wept outside a public building where Carrasco's body lay in state, attended by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and other leading politicians.
"It was a cruel, pointless, absurd deed," Rajoy said of the killing, after viewing the coffin.
"Isabel was a woman I have known well for many years. She was competent hard-working, intelligent and tenacious and dedicated her life to politics," he told reporters.
Carrasco's family requested privacy for an evening funeral service, local Popular Party sources said.
The shooting appeared to be a work-related act of revenge but "it occurred in a climate of growing ill-will towards the political class", said an editorial in conservative daily El Mundo.
Numerous Popular Party officials were assassinated in the 1990s and early 2000s in killings blamed on the Basque separatist group ETA, which announced an end to violence in 2011.
- Powerful character -
A lawyer by training, Carrasco was born in the province of Leon and held various provincial and regional posts. She had led the Leon provincial council since 2007.
The local newspaper Diario de Leon described her as a "powerful character".
"It was precisely this character and the power she accumulated that earned her numerous political rivals."
Since taking office in 2011 the Popular Party has imposed sharp government spending cuts to rein in the public deficit.
These cuts, and string of corruption scandals implicating top Popular Party members, have sparked street protests in a country with a 26-percent jobless rate.
