A man has handed himself in to police in Italy three days after a British teenager was left fighting for his life in Tenerife after being stabbed in the neck by an alleged phone thief.
The arrest of the unnamed man, a 20-year-old Italian national, follows the attempted murder of Theo Wright, 18, on the Spanish holiday island.
The teenager courageously sprinted after a thief who had just snatched a friend's mobile phone in the early hours of Tuesday near Playa de las Americas.
The mugger stabbed him in the neck and lung before taking off, and while Theo was left in critical condition, doctors have now said he is expected to make a full recovery.
The suspect managed to leave Tenerife and boarded a flight to Bari, Italy, resulting in a Spanish court issuing an arrest warrant.
Initial reports said he was arrested by Carabinieri - Italy's national police force - but his lawyer Mariano Salerno has said that his client handed himself in.
'The young man is devastated and deeply distraught; he is in tears, and his thoughts are constantly on the victim's health,' Salerno told Italian news outlet Ansa.
'My client comes from a respectable family and a very healthy background. I firmly deny that he has been tracked down by the police: as soon as he learned he was wanted, he contacted me to voluntarily hand himself in to the Carabinieri.'
A man has handed himself in to police in Italy after British teen Theo Wright (pictured) was stabbed in the neck by an alleged phone thief in Tenerife
Theo was left in critical condition, but doctors expect him to make a full recovery
The lawyer went on to say that his client insists that the incident was 'triggered by trivial reasons and that there was no attempted robbery or theft of his cell phone.'
Theo is currently unable to fly home to the UK because of the knife wound to his lung.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail from his hospital bed, with his mother Caroline at his side, Theo, from Royton near Oldham, said: 'I really thought it was game over. I thought I was going to die because of the amount of blood on the floor.
'It was only when I saw that, it dawned on me I'd been stabbed twice - in the neck and in the lung. It could have been really bad, but I'm alive, and that's the main thing.'
Theo said the ordeal began when he was outside a club getting some fresh air with a girl who was approached by a man asking to use her phone.
'She said 'No' and he said 'It's an emergency',' Theo recalled. 'So I said, 'Go on, it might be serious.'
'She handed it over, and he just took off. I sprinted after him - I didn't mean to be a hero or anything, I just wanted to help her get her phone back.'
Theo said he caught up with the man and placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
Doctors have told Theo that he will not be able to fly home until he is given the all-clear
Theo's mother Caroline, 56, flew to Tenerife in a panic after receiving a 3am phone call to say her only child had been stabbed
'He just swung round and that must have been when he stabbed me twice,' he said. 'I tried to run again but couldn't, and I just fell to the floor.
'That's when two Ukrainian guys helped me with first aid. I saw all the blood and really thought I was brown bread.'
Theo, an electrical engineering student who recently passed his driving test, added: 'I don't regret what I did. I would do it again - but it's embarrassing being called a hero.
'A real hero would have got the phone back. But at least I'm still alive, and that's what counts.'
His mother Caroline, 56, a leisure centre manager, flew to Tenerife in a panic after receiving a 3am phone call to say her only child had been stabbed.
The family have since set up a GoFundMe page to help cover Caroline's interim expenses while she remains abroad at Theo's bedside with a target of £5,000.
