Marbella taxi driver in knife attack incident

22 August 2014

Khalid, a Spanish taxi driver of Moroccan origin, who lives and works in Marbella was stabbed while on duty. Another cab driver with whom Khalid shares a license has been arrested in connection with the stabbing.

41 year old Khalid said goodbye to his wife and left the house at 11:15 PM on Monday to start his usual workday. He went to the taxi rank first, but the buses loaded with travelers didn't start arriving till midnight. There was no one there and he was first at the taxi rank (perpendicular to Ricardo Soriano Avenue in Marbella).

While waiting for clients, he noticed a white car stopped right behind him. He thought it was another taxi and paid no attention. The next thing Khalid saw was the alleged attacker, a man he knows very well, right next to his car seat. “What do you want?” Without a word, the attacker reached into the taxi through the window. Khalid thought he wanted to open the taxi door.

He didn't see the knife coming and soon felt the stabbing. He lowered his chin instinctively and believed that saved his life. "That’s what saved me”. Khalid and his family are convinced that the stabbing was meant to slit his throat, but fortunately it only caught his chin. That wound is the worst of the slashes to his face, damaging one of his facial nerves causing a slight paralysis on the face muscle responsible for grinning.

He tried to repel the aggression by pushing the door outward and trying to flee. In the scuffle, he received two more stab wounds, one long and another not as deep near his left eyebrow. “He said: ‘I’m going to kill you!’ I answered: "don’t be stupid, you will go to prison, and he replied ‘I don’t care’”. Although they separated for a moment, it wasn't over. The attacker went to his car, grabbed a backpack and came back to attack him.

Khalid goes on to relate that he took two more hits in the chest. One of the stab wounds reached his left lung. Khalid pushed the attacker and managed to escape. For a few seconds, he was chased around the taxi. “I saw another cab driver, I went to him and told him to call the police”. According to his story, several people surrounded the attacker to keep him from running away. When the emergency vehicles were on the way, a girl walking down the street at the time took care of Khalid, bandaging his face and plugging the chest wound. He later got a transfer to the hospital for further treatment.