Yesterday, Wednesday November 5th, the two minors who are accused of killing Cloe in Orihuela-Costa claimed that they not only killed her, but also planned the crime. The trial for this femicide started in the Benalúa Courthouse in Alicante. The prosecution and the private prosecution want each of them to spend eight years in prison. Even though the defendant admitted guilt, there was no plea deal because the prosecution wouldn’t lower the desired sentence, even as a gesture, as defence lawyers Encarnación Obdulia Martínez and Iván Rodríguez Lorente had suggested.
The first of the three planned sessions for this murder trial was tense, especially when the two defendants ran into the victim’s relatives, who were waiting in the hallway at the start of the trial. They were taken out of the detention cells with hoods and scarves covering their faces. The family was angry and remarked, “Now they’ll be ashamed of what they did.”
It will be a year since the crime in just over three weeks. The girl, who was 15 years old, was killed on November 24, 2024, the day before the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Even though her injuries were bad, the young woman was able to get up and get treatment by going to her brother’s house. He took her to the Torrevieja hospital right away, but they couldn’t save her life.
The young woman’s boyfriend was one of the main suspects from the start, and he was detained within hours. At first, he denied the crime, then he blamed the second suspect, and ultimately, at trial, he admitted to being involved. Months later, the Guardia Civil apprehended this second suspect after finding out that he was there when Cloe was attacked. At first, they accused each other, but now that they are on trial, they have admitted that they were involved. The second suspect has sought to diminish his role by saying that Cloe’s ex-boyfriend told him to do it. Both young guys tried to show that they were sorry for what happened in their statements, but the victim’s family didn’t think they were very honest.
Juan Carlos Fuentes, the family’s lawyer in the private prosecution, told this publication that the two men “still have different stories about what happened.” One says that the other had an effect on him, yet it has been shown that one does not have to participate if they don’t want to. They made plans and followed through with them jointly; neither thought about backing out.
The fictitious payment of debts
It came out throughout the trial that both defendants had been planning the murder. One of the accused says it was at least a week before the crime, while the other says they started preparing it three weeks before. In this case, they even sent each other anonymous messages, some of which were in Russian, trying to make it look like they were settling scores by saying things like “You’ll be next.” The ex-boyfriend sought to trick the Guardia Civil into thinking that the crime was related to a supposed drug debt. This false accusation just made the agony of the slain young woman’s family worse because it tried to ruin her reputation after she died. The lawyer for the ex-boyfriend said that he “said he made it up and apologised,” seeking to explain his behaviour by saying he was in shock over what had transpired.
The family wants this trial to show that the ex-boyfriend was trying to get back at her for leaving him by committing a sexist crime.
The inquiry found that the ex-boyfriend killed the young woman and a friend because she broke up with him. People who knew the victim well said that she had tried to help her lover make better choices, but in the end, she decided to leave him. Their speeches went on for an hour. Cloe’s parents, brother, and other young people who knew the victim also testified throughout the morning. Some of the people in the second group said that there was no leader in the organisation, and that it was a gang where everyone was equal. The parents of the two minors who were accused also knew what their civil duties were. At the end of the hearing, they tried to apologise to the family of the dead young woman, which made things tense.
In the second week, the Guardia Civil officers in charge of the investigation are anticipated to appear in the second session of the trial. They will describe the evidence that led them to the accused. The inquiry found the texts that the accused sent to each other. Even though they deleted them, the officers were able to put them back together. Biological evidence backs up these incriminating messages; the victim’s DNA was found on things taken from the defendants. There were blood stains on a scooter, gloves, a helmet, and a shoe that belonged to the suspected accomplice. The trial could end and the sentence could be handed down before the crime’s first anniversary.
Author: Derek Appleton
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