'All we wanted was justice'

In 2021, a security guard in Spain stormed into his workplace and shot four people. He was caught and badly injured after a standoff with police, and a trial was set but his victims would never get to see him punished. Should a mass shooter have been allowed the right to die by euthanasia?

- Giles Tremlett

AT 11.09AM ON 14 DECEMBER 2021, a man wearing a black baseball cap and a long auburn wig rang the bell at the Securitas offices in the Spanish city of Tarragona. It was a poor disguise, and when he entered the reception area on the first floor, staff quickly recognised Marin Eugen Sabau, a burly 45-year-old security guard who had been on sick leave for the previous six months.

Securitas is one of the world’s biggest security companies, with 345,000 employees worldwide, but this local office was nothing fancy – grey floor tiles, white laminated furniture, corporate advertising on the walls. “We help make your world a safer place,” read one slogan. In the main office, Luisa Rico, a 58-year-old junior manager, was printing out documents. She recognised Sabau’s voice. He sounded calm as he talked to a colleague in the reception area. She did not know he was carrying a pistol, or that he planned to shoot her.

Over the next few minutes, Sabau’s voice grew louder as an argument broke out. When Rico opened a security door to see what was going on, Sabau was just a short distance from her. He had discarded the wig and was pointing a pistol with a long black silencer into a meeting room. He fired at José Manuel Maestro, the company’s provincial manager, who fell to the floor. Then Sabau spun around to face Rico. In the instant before she slammed the door, he pulled the trigger again. “A puff of smoke rose from my sleeve,” Rico recalled. “The pain was terrible.”