A MAN who defaced a monument to victims of the Mauthausen concentration camp by painting a giant Swastika on it has been arrested.
Police say the sickening attack qualifies as a hate crime as well as wilful damage to public property.
They received reports about the Swastika on the memorial at the cemetery in Vinaròs on the Castellón province coast about a week before Easter, and have been investigating since then.
CCTV footage showed a middle-aged man with his face covered with a tubular woollen scarf which only left his eyes and the top of his head and receding hairline uncovered, but which were enough to eventually trace and arrest him.
Nothing has been revealed about his identity.
This is the second time the commemorative headstone has been defaced with the symbol famously hijacked by the Nazis during World War II, and Vinaròs council set up hidden cameras after the first attack.
The headstone features the names of seven local residents, all men, who lost their lives in the notorious German death camp.
Photograph by the Guardia Civil, taken from Vinaròs cemetery CCTV footage
