Brutal killer of Shropshire border couple is on the run from Spanish jail

Venezuelan national Jorge Real Sierra, now aged 65, had been allowed out on a special six-day temporary release from a prison in the Spanish city of Granada.

The South American, and his brother-in-law Jose Antonio Velazquez, were jailed for the torture and killing of Linda and Anthony O'Malley, from Llangollen, in 2006.

An arrest warrant has been issued by the Provincial Court in Alicante when Sierra failed to return to prison and police have launched a hunt across Spain for the fugitive.

Sierra was jailed for 62 years and Gonzales, now aged 50, was sentenced to 54 years having been convicted of the O'Malley's murders. They were expected to serve at least 25 years.

The killers were also ordered to return the money they stole from the O'Malleys' accounts, as well as paying £145,000 compensation to their family.

The couple's relatives welcomed the sentences at the time, saying that they were as severe as they could have expected.

Linda, 56, a manageress at a department store in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, and Anthony, 42, a car restorer, had travelled to Spain in September 2002 and were last seen in the Benidorm area on the Costa Blanca by a local estate agent.

The O'Malleys were ensnared after spotting a newspaper advertisement offering a two-bedroom villa, with swimming pool and pine woodland, for €30,000 (£20,300).

The unsuspecting couple were fatally lured to view the villa - on the Baradello Gelat development in the town of Alcoy 30 miles north of Benidorm - and their search for a dream retirement home in the sun turned into a nightmare.

The O'Malley's were held, bound and gagged for almost three weeks in the basement of the property while their kidnappers systematically emptied the couple's bank account of their £20,000 life savings.

While his wife was held at the villa, Anthony O'Malley was taken to cashpoints around the Costa Blanca and forced to withdraw the cash. Several of the incidents were caught on CCTV at the banks.

His wife remained in the villa, gagged and bound to a bed.

She was kept alive with a minimum of food, all the time being watched over by a webcam while her abductors remained downstairs or went on family shopping sprees with the stolen money.

Police suspect the couple were either threatened or tortured with an electric cattle prod.

When the cash ran out, Mr O'Malley was strangled. His wife was so terrified she had a heart attack.

The Liverpool-born pair were buried, one on top of each other, under the cellar floor and their credit cards were stolen.

The bodies were only found six months later after the killers were finally arrested, having attempted to blackmail members of the couple's devastated family.

While the search for the O'Malley's was going on, the couple's family back in Wales were left for months wondering what had happened to their loved ones and pressed the Spanish police for a full investigation.

It was not long before Sierra and Velazquez sent messages to the National Missing Persons Helpline, demanding a non-negotiable £12,550 fee for information about the O'Malleys, knowing all too well that the couple were dead.

In e-mails, the thugs claimed to be helping search for the couple and posed as professionals who 'specialised in finding people'. They gave the codename Phoenix.

Sierra even contacted the family directly and sent ransom notes to North Wales Police.

In one, he said Anthony was blind because his glasses had been taken and that Linda was sick and losing weight.

He claimed to be in contact with an alleged captor who believed the family had gold credit cards and a house for sale in England.

Spanish police eventually traced Sierra and Velazquez to a cramped and chaotic Valencia flat they shared with their wives and children.

Elite armed officers surrounded Sierra, who reached for a shotgun before he was bundled away.

Later he led investigators to the two bodies.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said she could not comment on the matter.