CGPJ – Judiciary – Superior Courts of Justice – TSJ Valencian Community – Communication Office – Archive of press releases

2023-09-06 12:00:00

The Civil and Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Community (TSJCV) has confirmed the sentence of 15 and a half years in prison imposed by the Provincial Court of Alicante on a man who murdered another with two shots in the town of El Campello in September 2019.

The Valencian High Court has thus dismissed the appeal filed by the defendant’s defense, understanding that the “rationality” of the multiple incriminating evidence taken into account by the popular jury to deliver its guilty verdict “is not denied because the inference be arbitrary or illogical.”

The Court of Alicante had sentenced him last February to 15 years in prison as the author of a crime of murder and to six months in prison and the payment of a fine for a crime of falsifying an official document. In addition, it imposed the payment of compensation of 100,000 euros in favor of the son of the deceased.

The court applied in this way the guilty verdict issued by a popular jury, which instead exonerated two other defendants of the same crimes.

The events date back to September 9, 2019, when the defendant traveled from the Madrid town of Collado Villalba to El Campello with a vehicle with the registration plates of another that had been previously stolen.

The prisoner stayed in a rental house in the aforementioned Alicante town and, five days later, in the company of third parties, went to the vicinity of the victim’s home.

They were waiting for her there and, when she appeared walking, the defendant or an unidentified third party ran after him and, surprisingly and unexpectedly, shot him twice in the head with a pistol, which caused his death. Immediately.

The Superior Court has now ratified the sentence handed down by the Alicante Court both in relation to the crime of murder and forgery for the placement of false registration plates in the vehicle used to commit the crime.

“The guilty plea did not respond to mere conjecture or speculation by the Jury Court. Rather, the presumption of innocence (…) was legitimately enervated by evidence or indirect evidence, to the extent that the incriminating evidence was multiple and there was a precise and direct link (…) between such evidence and the conclusion that makes him guilty.” , reasoned the magistrates of the TSJCV in the appeal decision.