Spain horror as expat shot in Costa del Sol holiday resort outside villa

The 39-year-old is said to have been gunned down in a professional hit as he parked up outside his luxury villa in Riviera del Sol near Fuengirola after returning from the gym. It was not immediately clear this morning if he lived alone at the large detached property, which has a notice by the front gate which says in Spanish: “CCTV operating in this area. You may be being recorded.”

Business records show Mr Williamson, believed to have been shot five times by his killer from another vehicle that drew up beside him before speeding from the scene, was registered as a self-employed agricultural sector intermediary specialising in “international trade.”

No arrests have yet taken place. It is not known where in the UK the dead man was from.

Mr Williamson was gunned down in a street called calle Ofrebres, on a residential street in hills above the Med on the north side of the AP-7 motorway running along the Costa del Sol, around 3.15pm yesterday.

Police made a desperate attempt to save his life at the scene by practicing CPR but were unable to save him. 

He is understood to have been shot several times in the chest as he sat in his UK-plated two-seater Audi, which was towed away around 7.30pm after his body had been removed and forensic experts had combed the murder scene for evidence.

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said afterwards: “We heard the sirens and thought it was a traffic accident but a shooting on an estate with children and families is shocking.”

The murder was the second in less than a week in the area. 

Last Friday a man was shot dead on a a residential estate known as Andasol a short drive from Marbella town centre and close to a beach area called Alvarito Playa east of Marbella.

Detectives hunting the killer, believed to have fled the scene in a getaway car, have not made any official comment on the nationalities of the gunshot victims, although local reports at the time said they were of “Arabic origin.”

That incident is being linked to a gangland drugs feud.

In January a millionaire businessman who was close to the stars of reality TV series TOWIE and partied with the likes of Mohamed Al Fayed, was shot dead outside his luxury Costa del Sol home.

Marco Yaqout was gunned down in the early hours of January 21 as he drove into his garage in his trademark UK-plated Bentley.

His killer was waiting for him outside his villa on a quiet residential street in an upmarket neighbourhood in San Pedro de Alcantara near Marbella called Las Petunias.

English-speaking entrepreneur Marco was described at the time of his murder as the owner of at least five-well-known nightspots in Puerto Banus, including the TOWIE favourite TIBU, and Linekers.

The gruesome murder was the latest in a string of violent incidents on the Costa del Sol in recent months.

They have included two attacks on Brits, the shooting of a Dutchman in a sushi restaurant in the popular resort of Benalmadena and the machine-gun murder of a Frenchman outside his home in Marbella. 

Last September a 24-year-old Brit was stabbed twice in the legs by an assailant who attacked him in the street without warning in the popular resort of Puerto Banus.

The violent crime occurred ten days after a 35-year-old Brit was shot, stabbed, beaten and given a Glasgow Smile close to the same area after being abducted by a gang of criminals over a drug deal.

The torture victim was later identified as Craig Moran, jailed for 13 years for his part in a September 2003 armed raid on a jeweller’s in Nottingham in which shop owner Marian Bates was killed.

source: express.co.uk