Yulisa Antonia Pérez from the Dominican Republic, whose corpse was found on a rubbish tip near Arrecife stepfather arrested

stepfather of 18 year old Yulisa Antonia Pérez from the Dominican Republic, whose corpse was found on a rubbish tip near Arrecife (Lanzarote) at the end of last year, five days after she was reported missing, has been re-arrested and charged with her murder. The suspect was first taken into protective custody on the day Yulisa's body was found after being accused of her murder by some within the local Dominican community, who were threatening to lynch him. Yulisa's partially-buried body was found by a local man out walking his dog on November 13th and the autopsy revealed that she died of ashpyxiation. However, apart from having her hands tied behind her back, there were no other signs of violence, and she had not been raped.
It seems that Yulisa's mother, Irma (photo), had moved in with the suspect around six months before Yulisa was killed. The family lived in the Los Geranios district of the island's capital.

Business groups on the island say pulling down 22 hotels will leave hundreds out of work and hit the tourist trade hard.

Lanzarote court ruled 22 hotels were illegally built.The Canary Islands supreme court has annulled the hotels' building licences after it was ruled that two councils had openly flouted a ban on building hotels. Lanzarote council will now consider whether to grant an amnesty, or send in the bulldozers.A police unit which fights organised crime has been called in to investigate whether the former mayors of Yaiza and Teguise granted illegal building licences in return for backhanders from property developers.The police investigation comes amid fears of a repeat of the widespread civic corruption scandal that led to the dissolution of Marbella city council in 2006.In Lanzarote, eight five-star hotels, 10 smaller hotels, and four others under construction were declared illegal. In all, they account for 7,721 hotel rooms or apartments on the island. Top-of-the-range hotels that could be pulled down are the Meliá Volcán, Iberostar Papagayo, Gran Castillo, Natura Palace, Rubicón Palace, Papagayo Arena and Son Bou. The court action follows efforts to gentrify the image of the holiday island beloved of British tourists.

In 2000, authorities limited the number of new hotels and those few that were to be given permission had to be four stars or above. But officials at Yaiza and Teguise councils ignored the limit and granted licences for thousands of "tourist places" or holiday accommodation, investing €270m (£212.1m) of public funds. The EU granted €36.5m to 11 of the hotels now ruled illegal to boost tourism on the island.Carlos Espino, a Socialist Lanzarote councillor, said: "These councils broke the order which we had put in place to preserve the island, which is a biosphere reserve. We will not have an amnesty. We will knock down what we have to."Business groups on the island say pulling down 22 hotels will leave hundreds out of work and hit the tourist trade hard. Instead, authorities may bring in an amnesty in the same way as the council in Marbella did when it discovered thousands of illegally built hotels and homes, many belonging to Britons.In Marbella, an international police investigation was launched into claims of civic bribery, cronyism and embezzlement. The mayor, head of urban planning and police chief were arrested and property worth €2.4m was seized.Instead of demolishing scores of illegal properties, authorities ordered property developers to hand over rural land to public ownership. The court action against the illegal hotels in Lanzarote was taken by the council and the César Manrique Foundation, which is named after the late architect who helped to ensure there were no high-rise hotels or garish advertising hoardings on the island.
Manrique's influence went a large way to ensuring the Canary island avoided the same fate as the concrete jungles of the Costa del Sol or Costa Blanca.
More court cases are expected to follow against other hotels on Lanzarote.

luxurious hotels on Lanzarote are illegal

A third of the most luxurious hotels on Lanzarote are illegal, according to a string of recent court rulings that are expected to lead to at least some of them eventually being demolished.The rulings by the Canary Islands High Court affect 22 hotels and apartment hotels built under licenses issued by the town halls of Yaiza and Teguise in violation of a ban on new construction imposed in 2000. Combined, the hotels - eight of which are four or five star - offer about 15,000 beds, approximately 23 percent of all beds available on the island.


While conservationists and some island officials are trumpeting the rulings as a victory for the environment, others are concerned that demolishing the hotels will cost jobs, reduce tourism and cause further harm to Lanzarote's already flagging economy."These town halls broke the regulations we had imposed to preserve the island, which has been declared a biosphere reserve," notes Carlos Espino, a Socialist member of the island council.Together with the César Manrique Foundation, a cultural association, the council brought the lawsuits against the hotels built in Yaiza and Teguise, including emblematic establishments such as the Princesa Yaiza, a luxurious five-star complex, and the nearby four-star Meliá Volcán.The cases echo the drawn-out legal processes that led to thousands of apartments and dozens of hotels being declared illegal in Marbella, a sprawling resort on mainland Spain's southern Costa del Sol. However, as in Marbella, where years of unchecked construction have blighted a once-picturesque coastline, it is unlikely that the illegal status of the buildings in Lanzarote will be sufficient to have them demolished.
Though Espino stresses that there "will be no amnesty" and we "will tear down those that must go," he admits that in all likelihood that will not mean all of the complexes. In some instances, razing the buildings may do more harm than good, and in others the developers may be allowed to stop the bulldozers from rolling in if they cede land elsewhere as compensation. However, the buildings that most flagrantly violate the law will be razed, especially those built on beachfront land, officials say. In the meantime, prosecutors have also launched investigations against the former mayors of Yaiza and Teguise who issued the illegal licenses between 1991 and 2004. Evidence suggests that, like in Marbella, they may have received substantial bribes from developers to break the rules.