The Provincial Court recently extended the time the man who is accused of killing his landlord in El Altet in October 2023 will spend in jail before his trial. Now they are waiting for a date for the jury trial in Elche, after both sides gave their temporary conclusions. The Prosecutor’s Office wants the accused to get 20 years for murder, but the two private prosecutors want them to get 25 years. The defence, led by lawyers Concepción Ferrández Campillo and José Manuel Yepes, wants him to be found not guilty or, if not, to be found guilty of murder with the defence of self-defence and intoxication from drugs and alcohol.
The Prosecutor’s Office is also asking for €180,000 in damages for the victim’s two children, as well as for the deceased’s mother and three sisters. One of the private prosecutions wants €472,000 for the two children, and the other wants €196,000 for the victim’s mother and three sisters.
The Prosecutor’s Office hasn’t said what they think caused the deadly attack, but the two private prosecutions do say that it might have been an argument over the rent the defendant owed the victim and the fear that the landlord, who went to the house to collect and saw that he had a lot of drugs, would report him for drug trafficking. After the crime, authorities found a drug lab in the house and took almost a kilo of cocaine and cutting agents. The investigation that followed led to the arrest of a narcotics gang that the defendant was reportedly in charge of. After he was sentenced to death for the murder, his girlfriend took over as leader.
The offence
The Prosecutor’s Office said that the accused, who is now 43 years old and has a criminal record, was at a house on Calle Baladre in El Altet at 2:30 a.m. on October 6rd, 2023. The owner of the house, who had rented it to him for at least a month, was with him. They got to the address half an hour early. They had been together in Alicante since 9:00 p.m. on October 5th. The accused took a knife from the washbasin just before 3:00 a.m. and stabbed his landlord in the left chest with the goal of killing him. This was a “surprise, unforeseeable, and unexpected” act for the landlord. The Public Prosecutor’s Office said that the stab cut an artery and hurt a lung.
The victim tried to exit the house through the front door to avoid more attacks, but the defendant stabbed him in the back numerous times. The victim was hurt badly, yet he was able to run up the steps and get outside. He wandered down a few streets looking for help until he got to a petrol station. There, he banged on the shutter to gain the attention of the attendant, who then called the police. The hurt man then sat down in front of the petrol station door and then lay down on the ground.
The Elche Local Police and the SAMU (National Association of Medical Officers) sent several patrols to the location right away. Medical staff tried to save the victim’s life, but they couldn’t stop him from dying a few minutes later. He died from post-hemorrhagic hypovolemic shock, which was caused by the stab wounds he had, especially the one that cut off his left axillary artery. The Local Police stopped the defendant on a street in El Altet a few minutes later. He has been in jail since October 8th, 2023, waiting for his trial.
The private prosecution brought by the deceased’s ex-partner on behalf of the victim’s children says in its accusation that the defendant owed him rent and that they made plans for him to pay the bill on the day of the events. They spent a few hours together before getting to the house in El Altet. When they got there, the now-dead person observed a lot of drugs and tools for producing them. This led to a fight, and the violent deed that killed the homeowner was influenced by the concern that the landlord would call the police.
The indictment filed by the victim’s mother and sisters, on the other hand, says that the assault happened after an argument about a debt the tenant owed the landlord for renting the apartment. It also shows that the renter was afraid the landlord would call the police since there were a lot of drugs in the house and the defendant was distributing narcotics. This worry had a big effect on “his violent actions.”
The defence team for the defendant tells a totally different story than the prosecution. They say that the defendant and the victim met peacefully on the night of October 5th to spend “some leisure time” together and drink. They went to a number of places in Alicante and drank “a huge amount of alcohol” and took cocaine. The defence team says that the owner of the house started acting “aggressively and out of control,” so they moved to the flat in El Altet. The defence team says that after they got inside, the victim got angry and confrontational because he said he was missing “a package.” They say that he started punching the defendant, picked up one or two knives, and tried to attack him. The defence says that the defendant fought hard to evade the knife attack and that the stab wounds that killed the landlord happened during this argument.
Author: Derek Appleton
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