Marbella constructor José Ávila Rojas, arrived at the prison in Albolote on Wednesday morning to complete an eight year sentence for four counts of tax fraud. His appeal against last year’s sentence from the Granada provincial court was turned down by the Supreme Court last month, and it left no other means open to try and avoid entering prison.The fraud relates to the purchase and sale of two properties in Marbella, Málaga province, at the beginning of this decade, calculated as amounting to 3.5 million € in unpaid IVA and income tax. The sentence from the Granada court last summer also ordered the businessman to pay a fine of 10 million €.
EFE reports he was due to spend Wednesday in the prison’s admissions department before being assigned to a cell at some stage on Thursday.

Coasts authority has contacted 27 owners of properties in Marbella requesting documentation proving their entitlement to enclosures of land which has been legally part of the public domain since boundaries were determined in the 60s and 70s. Owners have been given until next week to provide documentary proof of the legality of walls, fences, pools, sheds and gardens, otherwise they will be required to draw back their boundaries. One of the homes affected is in the name of Cayetan Fitz-James Stuart, Duchess of Alba, whose garden wall appears to enclose 32 square metres of public land. Others include part of the Hotel Marbella Club gardens, and a wall on the Cortijo Blanco beach belonging to Marbella Town Hall.
‘Costas’ will be moving its attention next to more recent buildings which may infringe the rules of the 1988 Coasts Law, which imposed new zoning rules and gave greater protection, for example, to sand dunes. By the time compliance with all the more recent regulations is enforced, it is estimated that 68,341 square metres of seafront land may be restored to public ownership.Spain’s Socialist government, keen to clean up the ugly concrete jungle along its costas, has taken a dim view of the duchess’s turreted summer residence on the Costa del Sol and wants parts of it bulldozed. A wall and a lawn leading to Casablanca beach in Marbella may contravene the so-called Coastal Law which states that all land within 100m (328ft) of a shoreline is public property and bans building within that area. Any private building falling within this zone can be knocked down depending on a local authority’s interpretation and enforcement of the legislation. The law has ramifications for thousands of British expatriates who bought villas next to the Mediterranean and now face the prospect that their properties could be reduced to rubble. Homes owned by Spaniards have already been knocked down in Tenerife and Cantabria in northern Spain. Francisco Javier Hermoso, head of the regional Coastal Authority, said that the Duchess had eight days to prove that her property was built with legal permission. If it is deemed to have broken the law part of the sumptuous residence could be knocked down. If the bulldozers roll up, it will be the latest humiliation for the fiery-tempered aristocrat. A regular face in Spain’s prensa rosa — or gossip press — her love life has recently provided succulent reading after it emerged that her children opposed her planned marriage to a family friend 24 years her junior. “They don’t want me to marry, but they change partners more often than I do,” she told the Spanish media. The waxen-faced duchess, whose full name is Maria del Rosario Cayetana Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Francisca Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva — she counts the Stuart king James II of England among her ancestors — is often photographed at society gatherings and bullfights, where her former son-in-law, Francisco Rivera Ordóñez, a popular matador, is the star attraction. As well as not having to kneel before the Pope, her other ancient rights include the unique privilege of being able to ride into the immense Seville Cathedral on horseback. A previous Duchess of Alba was the model — and supposed lover — of Francisco de Goya. Two of Goya’s most famous portraits, The Clothed Maja and The Naked Maja, hang in the Madrid palace where the present Duchess was born. She was a dazzling beauty in her youth and her wedding in 1947 to Luis Martinez de Irujo y Artacoz was described as “the most expensive in the world”. After her first husband’s death, she stunned public opinion by marrying Jesús Aguirre y Ortiz de Zárate, a free-thinking former Jesuit priest, in 1978. Today the duchess cuts a strange figure with her high-pitched voice and frail health. She was recently photographed in a wheelchair at a society wedding and nearly choked to death on orange juice. About 500,000 British and other property owners fear that the Government is not content with enforcing the Coastal Law but wants to make it retroactive. After condemnation of the law by the European Parliament and pressure from the British and German Governments Spain has agreed to allow owners to sell affected properties.

Demarcación General de Costas is reported to have started proceedings to recover the land, declared to be public shoreline, on which nearly 30 homes and other buildings have been constructed in Marbella.Among those affected is the Duchess of Alba, Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, who faces losing 32 square metres of her property on the Casa Blanca beach. A wall with gated access to her land has to go, according to the latest official provincial bulletin.The coastal authority has also started proceedings against properties owned by Marbella Town Hall and the Hotel Marbella Club. Owners have an eight day period to present their complaints against the orders. Then, if no complaints are made, or if the complaints are considered non-applicable, ‘the necessary measures will be taken to recover the occupied public land’, and that can include what is described as ‘administrative eviction’ as outlined in the Ley de Costas.Similar inspections are expected to result more cases in Fuengirola, Benalmádena and Torremolinos later this month and in June as the coastal authority moves East.

Lee Ward, 28, was killed instantly in a car crash close to Marbella, on the Costa del Sol. His grieving father, entrepreneur and executive Charles, 48, told of his devastation last night.
Writing on a Facebook tribute page set up in his son’s memory, he said: “God, how I miss you. You will never leave my thoughts or my heart forever my first born.” Amazingly a passenger, believed to be a male friend, is thought to have survived the horror by leaping clear of the car as it fell. He is believed to be fighting for life in hospital. Locals told yesterday how they saw the white £150,000 Gallardo convertible skidding as it crested a hill overlooking the exclusive Los Flamingos golf course. One said: “It careered over the edge and fell more than 250ft over the cliff, landing on its roof by the side of one of the greens. Lee had no chance but his passenger managed to leap clear of the car and survived with very serious injuries. “Lee was a very popular person locally and it’s a real tragedy.” Pals said his wife Kati had decided not to go with him just minutes before the crash. Yesterday more than 200 mourners attended Lee’s funeral at a church in Marbella as friends continued to pay tribute on the web. One said of Lee: “A guy that lived life to the full and was full of desire. Wherever you are, they’re lucky to have you — I know we were.” On Lee’s Facebook site a pal wrote: “I will say a prayer and dance to good house music — Lee Richard Ward keep dancing — RIP.” 29 year old British man has died and two other people, possibly also British have been injured in a traffic accident in Benahavís near Marbella.The vehicle in which the three were travelling left the road, fell down a drop and burst into flames. One of the occupants was trapped inside and had to be rescued by the fire service.There are reports that one of the injured is 38 years old and one was taken to the Costa del Sol hospital in Marbella for urgent treatment.It happened on the road between Benahavís and Cancelada, the CV-11, and happened at about 10pm on Saturday night. La Opinión de Málaga reports that the vehicle had Swiss number plates. Another said: “Thinking back on your antics leaves me wishing there could be just one last time. Now I know why they say the good die young.”

The latest Italian mafia leader to be arrested was once a security guard for an Italian government minister, say Spanish police. Police in Spain said Monday they had detained a leader of the Italian mafia who was once a security guard for an Italian government minister, in the latest in a string of arrests of top mafia figures.The man, identified as 48-year-old Giususeppe U, is wanted in Italy for drug trafficking and is suspected of involvement in a 1997 murder in Rome, police said in a statement. He was arrested in the southern port of Marbella."The fugitive, an ex-state policeman in Italy and a former bodyguard to an Italian minister, is considered to be one of the main leaders of a Calabrese mafia organisation by the authorities in his country," the statement said.Police suspect he ran an international drugs trafficking operation from Morocco where he lived and where he is thought to have held meetings with other members of the mafia clan, the statement added.Since 2006 more than a dozen leaders of the Camorra and other Italian mafia groups have been arrested in Spain, the main entryway into Europe for cocaine from Latin America and hashish from North Africa.In January Spanish police arrested two Camorra bosses, Antonio Caiazzo, 50, and Francesco Simeoli, 40, as they left a restaurant at an upscale Madrid neighbourhood.The arrests have highlighted the growing menace posed by the Italian mafia in Spain.Italian journalist Roberto Saviano, the author of "Gomorra," a best-selling expose of the criminal underworld in Naples, has said several mafia clans have transferred what he termed "their most risky activities," such as drug-running, to Spain, particularly to Barcelona.
Speaking in Barcelona earlier this month, he said Camorra bosses refer to the Spain's Mediterranean coast as "Costa Nostra" or "our coast", alluding to the Sicilian mafia's "Cosa Nostra".Giususeppe U., is wanted in Italy for drug trafficking and is suspected of involvement in a 1997 murder in Rome, police said in a statement. * * * "The fugutive, an ex state policeman in Italy and a former bodyguard to an Italian minister, is considered to be one of the main leaders of a Calabrese mafia organization by the authorities in his country," the statement said. Police suspect he ran an international drugs trafficking operation from Morocco where he lived and where he is thought to have held meetings with other members of the mafia clan, the statement added.

A woman is in a serious condition after jumping from the interior balcony of her home in Las Chapas, Marbella to avoid an attack from her 41 year old Colombian partner who was wielding a knife.Police say that the alleged attacked, named with the initials J.L.S.L. has no legal residence in Spain and was about to be deported last June.The 37 year old victim, also from Colombia, is now in the Costa del Sol Hospital in Marbella where she reported to be serious but stable.

Police in Spain are investigating if an overnight shooting in Marbella is linked to a gun attack on an Irishman in the Costa del Sol this week.
A 42-year-old man and one other person were shot in the early hours of this morning, outside a disco bar.On Thursday night 39-year-old Peter Mitchell, a former associate of convicted drugs dealer John Gilligan, was shot in a bar in Puerto Banus by a masked gunman.He remains under guard in hospital in Spain after narrowly surviving the assassination attempt, while two other men caught up in the shooting received minor injuries.

First Instance Court number 5 in Marbella has placed for auction the home of the ex Mayor of Marbella, Marisol Yagüe. The sale comes as part of the sentence which condemned her to pay more than 722,000 € for building reform work carried out to the property.According to the auction documents the property is worth more than 1.9 million €, although there is a mortgage in place with the Banco Español de Crédito and has another embargo in place on it.Those who are interested in the property have to go to the courts and supply a bank guarantee for a 30% deposit to take part in the auction which is set for September 23. Bids will be made in closed envelopes and the highest bid will win provided that it is at least 70% of the estimated value.

Mark Thatcher faces eviction from his Costa del Sol hideaway after his landlord branded him the tenant from hell.The disgraced son of former Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is being taken to court to get him out of the £1.5million villa he has rented for two years.Exasperated landlord Stephen Humberstone claimed that Thatcher, 54, has broken antiques, messed up the garden and is months in arrears with his rent. The fellow Old Harrovian said: "If you see him, punch him on the nose for me, would you?"The news comes after a week in which Thatcher was accused of being a key player in a plot to overthrow the ruler of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea in West Africa.Mr Humberstone said: "I'm issuing court proceedings. I want to evict him. He doesn't pay the rent, he alters the garden - he does what he bloody well wants."I don't want to go round there because I'll lose my temper.
He's deeply unpleasant."He put all my furniture into my gardener's van and sent it down to some office so I didn't know where it was. It wasn't even wrapped and it was smashed, but he didn't care. He just wanted it out of the house.
"He went to the same school as me and was in the same house, and this is how he treats people."Thatcher has been paying £5,500 a month rent for Casa Flores, where he lives with his new wife Sarah Russell.The £1.5million four-bed villa with a secluded outdoor pool is surrounded by closed-circuit TV.Visitors to the development in the hills above the resort of Marbella need permission to enter.The area is nicknamed the Costa del Crime, because of the number of ex-pat British crooks there.
Thatcher's lawyer has now been sent a fax demanding rent due since March. Thatcher - nicknamed "Thickie Mork" at Harrow - must pay up or face eviction.But Thatcher, who has a hereditary baronetcy from father Denis, is thought to be looking for a property in Gibraltar where he can dodge paying tax.Despite having £64million, he would pay only £20,000 tax a year if he had an address there.Thatcher last night refused to comment on his landlord's claims.

Monzer al-Kassar has played a key role in some of the worst atrocities committed against Israeli and Jewish civilians, and his links to one Arab regime in particular - that of his native country, Syria - deserve special scrutiny at a moment when Jerusalem is just about to begin potentially historic negotiations with its government. Kassar, 63, is an international arms dealer, and, by some accounts, has spent much of his lifetime as a key supplier of weapons to many of the worst enemies of Israel, America and the West.
Earlier this year, he was arrested by Spanish authorities after allegedly offering to sell weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Agency posing as representatives of Colombia's FARC guerrilla group. On Friday he was extradited from Madrid to New York City, where he is scheduled to face trial on charges that also include conspiracy and money-laundering.
The list of Kassar's alleged clients is a long one, ranging from Somali warlords to Bosnian militias, Brazilian rebels to Iranian agents. He is also rumored to have worked at times with Western governments - for example, as a middleman in the arms deals of the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s. This has led to claims that such ties have helped him remain relatively unmolested by authorities, for years living an openly lavish lifestyle as the so-called "Prince of Marbella" like a villain out of a James Bond movie. Kassar is also alleged to be a major supplier of weaponry to Palestinian terror organizations. His major legal entanglement prior to the current case against him came in 1995, when he was charged by Spanish authorities with providing the guns and explosives used by the Abu Abbas terror cell in their hijacking of the ship Achille Lauro, and the subsequent brutal murder of American Jew Leon Klinghoffer. Kassar denied the charges, but not the fact that he was a friend and supporter of Abu Abbas, telling the The Guardian two years ago: "No, you cannot call him a terrorist. He's a hero. He's a hero in the eyes of the Arabs ... I don't allow you to call him terrorist!" Kassar's acquittal in that case has led to allegations that Madrid allowed him to operate as long as he kept his business off Spanish soil and away from Spain's enemies. But Washington has in recent years stepped up its pursuit of Kassar and the pressure for his extradition, no doubt because he has been fingered as a key arms supplier for the Iraqi insurgents killing US troops. Among his reputed governmental links, there is no doubt that his closest one through the years has been to the rulers of his homeland.
Kassar's father was a significant early backer of Hafez Assad, and later served him in various senior diplomatic positions. Kassar himself is considered to be a personal protege of longtime Syrian defense minister Mustafa Tlas, one of the top figures in the Ba'athist oligarchy that has maintained an iron grip on the country for over four decades. Among the many unsavory services Kassar is alleged to have provided for Damascus is facilitating its role in the international narcotics business. Having himself been arrested in his younger days for hashish smuggling, he is believed to have played a major role in the export and distribution of the bountiful harvest of the Lebanese Bekaa Valley opium fields that long operated under Syrian protection.
Perhaps Kassar's most nefarious role is one that won't get mentioned in the New York courthouse where he will soon stand trial - the part some informed sources believe he played in the bombings of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the Argentinean capital's AMIA Jewish Center in Buenos Aires in 1994. Kasser was among a number of businessmen of Syrian origin or roots believed to have close ties with Carlos Menem, himself the child of Syrian immigrants, providing the Argentinean president with funds and contacts used to help further his political career, and in return protecting them from prosecution for their links to terrorist groups. In 2000, Kassar was indicted by an Argentinean court for using fraudulent documents in order to obtain citizenship there eight years earlier, possibly with Menem's assistance.
Another Argentinean judicial investigation into Kassar's activities uncovered a source claiming that the sophisticated Centex (C-4) explosive used in the Buenos Aires bombings had originated in a Spanish factory owned by Kassar, and been smuggled into Argentina via his contacts with Syrian intelligence. Just last month, an Argentinean prosecutor asked a local court for permission to arrest Menem, on charges he covered up the involvement of Syrian-Argentinean individuals connected with the bombings.
Although focus on foreign involvement in these atrocities usually emphasizes the alleged Iranian role in their execution, Kassar serves as a useful reminder of the part Damascus is believed to have played in them.
Given the shadowy and Byzantine nature of Syrian politics, it is difficult to know the nature of Kassar's current standing with the government of Basher Assad. But as Israel sits down to negotiate with Damascus over issues that decisively touch on this country's most sensitive security concerns, this shady super-criminal is an all-too-fitting exemplar of the dark side of Damascus, one that goes far beyond simply the shelter and aid it openly provides to such groups as Hamas and Hizbullah.

Holidaymakers have been warned that fresh food supplies are running low in Spanish shops and restaurants after the third day of a truckers' strike.Supermarkets, bars and eateries have been unable to restock essentials such as meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. Some restaurants in the Costa del Sol were yesterday offering reduced menus and many feared they will be forced to shut within days.The striking drivers have blocked off wholesale food markets and brought ports, including Alicante, Malaga, Valencia and Barcelona, to a virtual standstill.
Irish holidaymakers in Alicante and Malaga encountered queues at supermarkets and petrol stations yesterday. Xavier Martin, director of Majorca's food market Mercapalma, said stocks of fruit and vegetables will run out unless the dispute is resolved. The strike by 90,000 self-employed drivers has sparked panic buying of food and fuel. Supermarket shelves in Marbella were almost empty yesterday.

trashed a £5million house after a girl advertised her 16th birthday party on the internet.Drunken revellers hurled a television and tables and chairs into the swimming pool, smashed doors, destroyed carpets, damaged walls and stole £6,000 of jewellery and designer clothes.Someone had spread a rumour that the owners did not mind if the seven-bedroom mansion was damaged because they were "getting divorced".British expat Amanda Hudson agreed to let schoolgirl Jodie hold the party at their holiday villa in Marbella, Spain.But Jodie posted details including the address on social networking internet sites Facebook and Bebo.She called it "party of the year" and said: "Theres gone be a lot of alcohol an amazing DJ."Hundreds of youngsters from all over the Costa del Sol turned up on motorbikes and quad bikes.Even though Amanda was present she was powerless to stop the hooligans from ransacking her home.
Eventually she called police with the party still in full swing.Two police cars arrived just after midnight.One partygoer said: "People scarpered in all directions.
"The police managed to pull people over and search their bags and pockets but it was already too late and a lot was gone."There were kids behaving like gangstas from a rap video, throwing stuff around and smashing things."There were chairs, tables, even a television in the pool."Somebody said that we were allowed to wreck the house because the birthday girl's parents were getting divorced."
The villa, which Amanda rents out for £4,000 a week in the summer, was completely wrecked and will not be suitable to let again until it is repaired.Amanda told a friend: "The place looked like a war zone."All the banisters have been broken, the walls are ruined, the carpets are destroyed, furniture is broken and it is going to take months to sort out."A friend said: "Amanda is still furious with her daughter. She hasn't spoken to her since that night."Jodie, who goes to an expensive private school in Sotogrande, sent a message to a friend from her Bebo site last week saying: "There's so much damage and clothes stolen and a lot of broken doors. People were caught having sex."I got punched by my mum for it and grounded until the summer. What a BITCH!"Estate agent Amanda, originally from Liverpool, refused to discuss the party yesterday.She said: "I am not saying anything about that."


400 revellers to turn her Costa del Sol home – in Marbella’s exclusive Paradise development – into a wreck

There were kids behaving like rap video gangsters.
.Unknown to Mrs Hudson, Jodie, who attends one of southern Spain’s most upmarket private schools, had announced the party on social networking sites Bebo and Facebook.Officers frisked everyone they could catch fleeing the house.
One partygoer said: “It was already too late and a lot was gone.“There were kids behaving like gangsters from a rap video, throwing stuff around and smashing things.”
The villa, which costs £4,000 a week to rent or is offered for sale at £4.4million, was completely trashed and will be unavailable for rent this summer.Mrs Hudson has told a friend: “All the banisters have been broken.“The walls are ruined, the carpets are destroyed, furniture is broken and it is going to take months to sort out.”The friend said Mrs Hudson was “still furious” with her daughter.Jodie, who attends the Sotogrande International School near Marbella, gives an update on her web pages.On one she signs herself “Hudson-is-a-rebel” and writes: “There’s so much damage. People caught having sex. I got grounded until the summer. What a bitch!”
When contacted at the villa yesterday, Mrs Hudson, who is originally from Liverpool, refused to discuss the party. “I am not saying anything about that,” she said.
Describing it as the “party of the year”, she posted her home address on the sites and invited dozens of friends, saying: “There’s going to be a lot of alcohol and an amazing DJ.”To add to the chaos, an unfounded rumour was circulating among the uninvited “guests” that the owners did not mind the seven-bedroom mansion being trashed – because they were “getting divorced”.Despite the presence of Jodie’s horrified mother, hundreds of Costa del Sol teens arrived at the house on motorbikes and quad bikes.The rampaging youngsters left a trail of misery for Mrs Hudson – and a sizeable bill for the damage.Dozens of items – including a TV set – were thrown into the swimming pool and half Mrs Hudson’s wardrobe was stolen. Jewellery worth more £6,000 was also taken.The distraught mother eventually called police and two patrol cars arrived just after midnight when the party, earlier this month, was still in full swing.

The Málaga environmental prosecutors office has reach a pact with the ex Mayor, Julián Muñoz and five others, Marisa Alcalá, Dolores Zurdo, Rafael González, Manuel Calle and Mario Jiménez, who have each accepted a 12 month prison term on each charge. As there are dozens of charges in each case, the law establishes a maximum of triple the term imposed in each case, so the six are to serve a total three years each in prison.

Only six of the ex GIL councillors, in Marbella Town Hall between 1995 and 1999, have finally accepted the deal offered to them by the Prosecutors’ Office under which their cases will not have to go to court, but they will serve shorter prison terms.The defence lawyer Ernesto Osuna, who was acting for several of the ex councillors, commented that time already served by his clients in the Proinsa and Moansa real estate cases would de deducted from the three year total. He described the deal as ‘very positive’ and thought the ex councillors would start serving their time in September.In the case of Julián Muñoz, it means the ex Mayor will avoid nearly 100 additional cases for serving just one additional year in jail.The situation is more complicated for those councillors who were in the Marbella Town Hall between 1999 and 2003 who used the PGOU dating from 1998 in a fraudulent way – that’s to say they based their decisions on the PGOU despite it not having been approved by the Junta de Andalucía. This is the case for the ex-councillors, Tomás Reñones or Francisco Lendínez, who say they will only accept a fine and not a prison sentence. Defence sources say the Prosecutors’ Office is not prepared to change the deal for that group as yet, but that talks on these councillors are set to restart in June.

The Spanish ministry is determined to tackle organized crime on the Costa del Sol. It is targeting the large international gangs that are using the latest technology and modern methods of moving money. Two new special police units are to be formed to work alongside the existing drugs, organized and violent crime groups. They will gather intelligence on gangs and liaise with international law enforcement agencies in the criminals’ countries of origin, especially eastern Europe.In a press statement the Ministry of the Interior explained that the trafficking of hashish from Morocco across the Straits of Gibraltar was largely responsible for the existence of organized criminal gangs on the Costa del Sol. These groups were largely made up of criminals from France, Britain, Italy and Germany.The ministry pointed to the occasional outbreaks of violence between these criminal groups that resulted in the so-called ‘settling of accounts’. These are provoked by the theft of shipments of drugs, arms and often result in murders of which a number have occurred in Marbella this year including the recent slaying of two innocent people.
During 2004 police on the Costa del Sol seized 5,200 kilos of heroin, 21,812 kilos of hashish, 190.3 kilos of cocaine, 51,541 ecstasy tablets in 63 actions against 35 organized gangs. In Andalucía the total number of people detained this year stands at 490 in 86 actions involving 49 criminal groups.

The chief inspector of the unit against drugs and organised crime (UDYCO) in Marbella says he is ‘very affected’ by the accusations against him. He says if he has committed any infraction, it ‘must be administrative and not criminal’.
Alfredo M and his co-chief, Carlos F, are being held in preventative custody pending trial. Two others from the Fuengirola branch of UDYCO were released on conditional bail whilst a doctor from a Marbella clinic was bailed to the tune of 30,000 euros.
The inmate, identified as Alfredo M, denies belonging to a racket involving up to 16 other officers who allegedly pocketed stolen goods. Other charges including document forgery and illegal possession of firearms have been brought against various suspected members of the operation. But Alfredo M says he has ‘always worked to combat crime and the mafia’.

The most spectacular violator of planning laws has been the council in the Costa del Sol town of Marbella. Planning chiefs allegedly took bribes to grant licences to 30,000 houses. In 2006, police arrested 28 people, including the mayor, Marisol Yagüe, and the former head of planning, Juan Antonio RocaNicolás - the alleged mastermind of the fraud. Police investigating allegations of corruption and fraud seized property and goods worth a total of £1.7bn.Roca, 53, is said to have approved 600 developments during his 15 years in office, taking a 10 per cent 'commission' to ignore planning restrictions and becoming one of Spain's richest men.

Britons are being scared off buying property on Spain's Mediterranean coast, with the number of potential buyers plummeting after a series of corruption and planning scandals and the announcement of plans to demolish thousands of illegally built homes.New figures,by the Costa del Sol Association of Constructors and Promoters, show a dramatic fall in the number of non-Spaniards purchasing villas and apartments in the popular tourist area. Foreign buyers, of whom an estimated 40 per cent are British, spent €540m (£406m) on property in the area in the first 10 months of last year. Over the same period in 2005, the figure was €1.84bn (£1.38bn) - a drop of 70 per cent in two years.Economists cite higher mortgage repayments, oversupply and concerns about the economy as factors. But José Prado, president of the association in Málaga, said: 'The single most significant factor in this horrific decline has been the threat of demolition.'

The roller was sold for a little over 39,000 € and now becomes the property of the Grupo Franco y Proyectos, which is based in Salzadella. The two other bids presented came from private individuals but were both around 3,000 € below the winning bid. The reserve price was set at 34,650 €.The car has been put up for auction before, twice by the Management Committee which ran the town for a year after the Town Hall’s dissolution in 2006, but both were called off after no bids were presented. And the previous Mayor of Marbella, Marisol Yagüe, announced that it would be put up for sale in February 2005: the Rolls was valued at that time at 250,000 €.The Rolls Royce which was used by the late Mayor of Marbella, Jesús Gil y Gil, an eight cylinder 1992 Silver Spur has a new owner, a construction company from Castellón.

Marbella residents will soon have unlimited use of the town’s nine bus routes for only 36 euros a month once the new transport company’s pass comes into force. This means that getting around the town on several buses will cost only 1.1 6 euros a day, as opposed to the 1.15 euros it currently costs for just one bus journey.

A woman who was attacked by her husband in Marbella in the early hours of Sunday, and is said to have suffered around 11 stab wounds, has now been released from Intensive Care at the Costa del Sol Hospital and her life is no longer. Her husband is in the same hospital under police custody after turning the knife on himself, and is understood to be in a serious condition, with a wound to his lung.
It happened shortly before 5am on Calle Alcornoque, in the Elviria area of Marbella, and was reported by the woman’s son. A friend who was with the victim until around half an hour before the attack said the couple were in the process of separating, but that the husband had yet to leave the family home. She told EFE there was no history of domestic abuse.
It’s understood both the husband and the wife and Spanish.

Jose Dominguez Prieto, the father of Spanish actor Antonio Banderas, died in the southern resort city of Marbella after a long illness, the actor's representatives told Efe on Sunday. He was 87.
Dominguez, who was a police precinct chief, died Saturday at his son's residence in the resort city, where he spent his last days.
He will be cremated Sunday at Marbella's Virgen del Carmen cemetery, the actor's representatives said.