Bilbao Dating-App Killer Nelson David Moreno Gets a Fifth Conviction, 19 Years for a Berango Council Member's Death
A plea deal replaced the jury trial, and for the first time a court applied the aggravating factor of anti-gay discrimination to his crimes.
Published
Nelson David Moreno, already in prison in Spain for killing men he met through a gay dating app in Bizkaia, was sentenced on October 16, 2026, to 19 more years for the 2021 killing of Koldo Martínez, a town council member in Berango for the left-wing party Izquierda Unida. It is his fifth conviction.
The sentence came out of a plea agreement. The defense, the public prosecutor and the private and popular prosecutors all signed on, and Moreno accepted it at a closed hearing before the Audiencia Provincial de Bizkaia, so the jury trial set to begin on October 19 never took place. The court handed down 13 years for homicide, 4 years and 3 months for robbery with violence in an inhabited home, and 1 year and 9 months for fraudulent use of a bank card. He must also pay 15,000 euros to each of Martínez's eight siblings. The ruling is final.
According to the facts the court accepted, Moreno contacted Martínez through the dating app Wapo, presenting himself as someone looking for a sexual encounter at Martínez's home, with the real aim of killing him. Martínez died on September 2, 2021, of respiratory failure brought about by a means that could not be determined. Moreno then moved money out of Martínez's bank account and sold some of his belongings, 1,309 euros in all, which he must repay to the heirs.
For the first time in Moreno's cases, the court applied the aggravating circumstance of discrimination based on the victim's sexual orientation, under article 22.4 of the Spanish Penal Code, to every count. The ruling found that Martínez was chosen because he was gay. The court also applied recidivism to the fraud count.
Moreno's earlier convictions cover the killings of other men in 2021 and one attempted killing. The most recent came on September 18, 2026, when the same court, also by agreement and behind closed doors, sentenced him to 18 years, 9 months and 1 day for murder and fraud over a man's death in Bilbao in July 2021. Reports said he still faces two more trials.