A MAN WHO appeared court this morning over the discovery of John George’s body has been released on bail pending an ongoing criminal probe.

John George, 37, from west Belfast, also known as John Hardy, had been on holiday in Alicante and was last in touch with his family on 14 December.

The father of two was reported missing four days later after he failed to board his flight home to Northern Ireland.

A 32-year-old man was arrested earlier this week. Investigators suspected at least one other person may have been involved in the incident.

A spokesman for the Valencian Community’s High Court of Justice, which covers the town of Torrevieja where the suspect appeared before a judge, said this afternoon: “The head of Torrevieja’s Court of Instruction Number Two, acting as a duty court, has decided to release with precautionary measures the man arrested in relationship to the homicide of a northern Irish citizen whose body was discovered in Rojales on Tuesday.

“The decision was taken in accordance with the criteria of public prosecutors.

“The judge is currently attributing to him a crime of homicide as an accomplice or by aiding and abetting the crime.

“His bail conditions include the obligations to sign on at court every fortnight and hand in his passport and he is also banned from leaving Spain.

“The court will continue with investigations with the intention of fully solving this case.”

The man brought to court today, who has not been named, has now been placed under official investigation by the courts as part of a continuing homicide probe. In other words he is now an ‘investigado’ under Spanish law.

Any formal charges would not be laid until shortly before trial.

Yesterday the first pictures emerged of the remote spot where John’s body was found after he went missing during a Costa Blanca holiday.

Police had returned to the scene and one of the officers was using a metal detector to scour over the surrounding ground and a rural road beside the orchard.

Post-mortem results have not yet been made public and police have not said how long John’s body had been at the spot where it was found on Tuesday morning.

John’s family went to Spain to identify the body and are to bring him home in due course.