This news report about a particularly brutal instance of culture enrichment concerns a mugging that took place in Mataró in the Barcelona Province of Catalonia. It was published last week in La Vanguardia. Many thanks to our Spanish correspondent Hermes for the translation:

Detained for (almost) cutting off a woman’s hand in order to steal her bag

The victim was rushed to the hospital in Mataró to undergo an operation. The thief was a neighbor and has already been detained.

Last 27th February at about eleven at night the 60-year-old victim was returning to her home in Provença street, Cerdanyola neighborhood, when she was assaulted by two individuals who threw her to the floor and tried to steal her bag. When she showed resistance, one of them took out a big knife in order to cut the strap of the bag, but in the end he almost cut off the woman’s hand, leaving her severely wounded.

The neighbors said that the woman was rushed to the hospital in Mataró, where she had to undergo a delicate operation involving reconstructive surgery, because they had cut the tendons in her arm, near the wrist. The victim is recovering now.

Coincidentally, one of the robbers, the 21-year-old Moroccan national Rachid E. A., also a resident of the same district and a member of a family of merchants, had already been to the local police station to report the loss of his ID card. Thanks to the description of the robbers, the police connected the dots and could verify that the thief of Cerdanyola was the same person who had previously lost his ID.

Further investigations lead to the detention of Rachid E.A. last Friday. He was charged with robbery with violence, intimidation and causing grievous bodily harm. The young man, who was very well known to the police due to his long list of offences, was sent to provisional detention by the judge in charge.

For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.