Death of Redeemed pastor, daughter, son in pool ruled as ‘freak accident’

Police investigating the deaths of a British father and his two children, who drowned in a pool at a Spanish resort, say the case can be closed.

Gabriel Diya and his two children tragically died during a stay at the Club La Costa World resort on the Costa del Sol.

Spanish police have now concluded their initial report and say the case can be closed, despite the children’s mother insisting something must have been wrong with the pool for them to drown, the BBC reports.

A police spokesperson put the deaths down to a lack of swimming ability in a “freak accident” and told the BBC: “There is no further investigation because no crime has been committed.”

Their findings suggests there is no accountability on the part of the hotel, the police say.

Olubunmi Diya, Gabriel’s wife, maintains that all three were able to swim and wants the investigation to continue.

Ms Diya lost her daughter Comfort, nine, son Praise-Emmanuel, 16, and her husband, 52, in the incident.

She said her loved ones were not left unattended and were somehow “dragged into the middle” of the pool.

However, hotel operator CLC World Resorts and Hotels has said Mrs Diya’s claims are “directly at odds with the findings of the police report”.

In a statement it stressed police findings made it “clear that their exhaustive investigations have confirmed the pool was working normally and there was no malfunction of any kind”.

Ms Diya’s lawyer, Javier Toro, said different engineers could be brought in for a “parallel investigation” after police said their own findings point to the incident being a “tragic accident”.

He was quoted by the BBC as saying: “It’s very rare for three people to die in the centre of a swimming pool – especially in the case of a tall, hefty man.

“Something must have happened apart from a simple error or simple accident.”

He said the family is “not satisfied with the interpretation of it being a simple accident”.

“Clearly the death of three people at the same time in a pool makes it evident that something very strange happened. It’s an event that must be studied,” he said.

“We do not discard the option of opening a parallel investigation through different engineers… to figure out what happened”. (Agency report)