Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/ROSARIO: Two persons fired shots at a closed supermarket in Rosario belonging to the family of Lionel Messi’s wife before leaving a threat letter on the ground aimed at terrifying the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner.
Messi faces threats
“Messi, we are waiting for you. Javkin is the narco; he won’t take care of you,” said that handwritten message left on the ground by the two men who shot 14 bullets into the supermarket’s metallic facade on Thursday.
Pablo Javkin is the mayor of Rosario, the hometown of Messi, where the market is located, some 320 kilometres northwest of Buenos Aires. Javkin confirmed the supermarket belonged to the family of Antonela Roccuzzo, the wife of the World Cup winner. The mayor said the attack aimed to “create chaos in the city.”
He said, “here, what’s sought is the repercussion; it’s perfidious,” and “what story goes more quickly viral in the globe than an attack on Messi?”
A witness confirmed seeing the two people arrive on a motorbike just before 3 am. One of them got off, fired shots, dropped a note, and fled. Javkin said, “this has been going on for some time,” and “We have five security forces operating in Rosario, yet they did that because no one is chasing them.”
Ivan Gonzalez, provincial police assistant chief, said the message was “not the threat” but rather the attempt to “attract attention.” He said no one was hurt since no one was on the premises at that time.
A prosecutor in charge of the case, Federico Rebola, told reporters that no previously known threats were hurled at the Roccuzzo family. “We are concerned; this has a huge repercussion, we’ve got the video images, and we’re looking for more cameras,” he said.
