By Gerard Couzens
A MAN arrested twice on suspicion of involvement in the murder of former Rangers player Arnold Peralta has been shot dead.
Moises Pascual Murillo, 29, was killed as he drove along a street in the northern Honduran city of La Ceiba where the footballer was gunned down in a shopping centre car park just over a year ago.
Local authorities said Murillo had been held twice over Peralta’s brutal murder but released on the orders of a judge investigating the crime because of lack of evidence.
He was arrested the first time around along with five other people on suspicion of possessing a firearm thought to have been used to kill the ex-Rangers’ midfielder and possession of police uniforms.
The murder of the father of one on December 10, 2015, has yet to be solved, although police have said they believe his tangled personal life may explain the crime.
No-one is yet thought to have been arrested over the murder of Murillo. The motive for the shooting has not been clarified, although there is no suggestion at this stage that it is linked to Arnold’s killing.
Peralta’s widow Vanessa Oliva admitted last month that she was still not ready to tell their toddler daughter Camilla, four months old when he was killed, what had happened to him because her own wounds still had to heal.
She told a newspaper in Honduras during an interview to mark the anniversary of her husband’s murder: “It seems like it happened yesterday.
“Arnold is still present in our lives. I remember him every day. My daughter looks very much like him and from the moment she wakes up I see her and recall him .
“A few days ago she woke up and asked, ‘Daddy?’ “I didn’t know what to say to her so I began to laugh and cuddle her.”
She added: “As she grows up, I’m going to start telling her what we shared and how special he was. It’s very difficult seeing my daughter grow up without her dad.” I haven’t prepared myself yet to tell her where he is.”
Local reports have linked Peralta’s shooting to the kidnap and violent death the same day as his of a woman called Andrea Paez Ochoam whom the footballer was spotted with at a nightclub in La Ceiba when he got into an argument with a well-known local criminal weeks earlier.
Model Kathrin Galo, 19, claimed last year she had a nine-month affair with the midfielder, who played 25 times for Rangers between 2013 and 2015.
La Ceiba police chief Omar Reyes has insisted there have been “satisfactory advances” in the police investigation.
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