The ramapge left many restaurant staff and customers injured© Lavoxdelanzarote.com

13.02.2010 - Four people were hospi­talised after the soldiers, believed to be Welsh Guards, went on the rampage in the Vaca Loca restaurant in the popular resort of Costa Teguise. Witnesses say the violence was triggered when staff challenged one of the soldiers who tried to steal a bottle of wine. Custom­ers, including several young children, had to dive for cover under their tables as some of the soldiers hurled tables and chairs across the restaurant while the others took it in turns to punch and kick the owner and his staff. One of the customers, an Italian who was dining with his wife and 75-year-old mother and tried to aid the owner, received a brutal beating and requires facial surgery to rebuild his cheekbone and jaw. Another customer, German Thomas Salewski, almost lost an eye.

The customers and staff have published an open letter on the Internet to the Brit­ish Prime Minister urging him to step in to make sure the soldiers are punished. Accompanying their letter with horrific pictures of the injuries, the customers called on Mr Brown to review the training methods used in the Army if they are to be put into practice on innocent people: “Your highly trained and perfectly coordinated soldiers wrecked a restaurant and ran off after their bloody assault. As a civilian like us, we call on you to keep bet­ter control of your Armed Forces to ensure that when they go on holiday to another country they do not use their training to attack defenceless civilians. We also ask you to personally contact their Unit (your Consulate knows who they are) and investigate the type of training these men have received. It is appropri­ate for your soldiers to be trained as human weapons to protect the civilian popula­tion, but we cannot tolerate their presence on our island if, like so many of your com­patriots, they come here to cause damage, get drunk and annoy others.  We have been physically hurt by the actions of your soldiers but that is nothing compared to the psychological suffering of the children and elderly people in the restaurant who had to witness such a bloody spectacle”.

The letter, signed by the ‘Vaca Loca Restaurant vic­tims’, ends with ironic con­gratulations to the Prime Minister for having trained ‘such highly skilled profes­sionals whose ‘team work’ and ability to dish out vio­lence was very much in evi­dence in their brutal assault’. Chef Martín Vessecchia, who needed several stitches for the head and facial injuries sustained during the attack, described the soldiers as ‘drunk but totally in control of what they were doing. They were on automatic pilot, they did not care who they hit’. The Vaca Loca’s owner, Hernán Martín, who had to close temporarily to repair the damage caused, said he was shocked at the level of violence used and would do everything in his power to make sure the soldiers are not allowed to return home without punishment.

The Ministry of Defence has refused to release any details of the incident, say­ing it had ‘a duty of care to uphold and it would be highly inappropriate to give any personal details’.
By Karl McLaughlin



This article appears in the print edition 610 of Island Connections

Gallery: Soldiers’ holiday rampage

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