20-year-old killed by Valencia bar owner in Spain

The bar with no customers that ended in a confessed homicide in Valencia

The bar had no customers. It never did, and yet it stayed open. Neighbors of the Valencia bar where the National Police have arrested its owner, Hugo A.M., 62, describe a business that operated without any public.

The man, known as "El Comandante" and friendly with customers, confessed to beating to death Harold, a 20-year-old he accused of having caught stealing in the premises. The story did not hold up against the evidence: officers decided to arrest him in light of indications that he was lying.

A business with no customers and a confession that doesn't add up

A bar staying open without ever filling the counter is, according to several analyses of the case, a common pattern in establishments used as fronts for money laundering. Neighbors' observations point directly to that economic hypothesis.

The autopsy released by the Scientific Police describes a picture far beyond a reaction to a theft: blows and fractures in several parts of the body, a crushed skull, loss of teeth and bone injuries to the face. The head impact, in the report's terms, was excessively forceful.

The question that remains about the Valencia bar

Some read the incident as a desperate example of taking the law into one's own hands against crime. The economic reading also weighs: a bar with no customers that covers its expenses does not live off the till. Neither interpretation changes the essential fact: a 20-year-old has died and his alleged attacker is in custody.

The investigation will have to determine whether the motive was robbery, whether the bar concealed another activity, or whether the owner simply lost control. Sometimes an empty bar is just an empty bar. But a beating that ends with a crushed skull does not need a financial front to exist.