A 30-year-old Ukrainian motorist who refused to take a drug test was given an eight-month prison sentence, but the Benidorm Local Police did not tell him in his language, therefore the Criminal Court No. 2 of Benidorm recently ruled that he should not have to go to jail.
The driver who was found not guilty, with the help of lawyer Bogdam Moiseienko from the firm Galiana Abogados, was accused by the Prosecutor’s Office of a crime against road safety for not taking drug tests.
Along with an eight-month prison term, the Public Prosecutor’s Office asked for a two-year driving prohibition as well. However, he was found not guilty in the same courtroom of the Criminal Court Number 2 of Benidorm, where the trial took place on November 19th.
The facts in the judgement show that on September 16th, 2014, a National Police patrol stopped a car driven by the defendant on Avenida Europa in Benidorm. The officers, who were in an unmarked car, stopped the automobile because they smelt marijuana, which is a drug. Then, a team from the Local Police that looks into traffic accidents was dispatched to provide the driver drug tests. The driver “was not told in his own language what the test was for or what would happen if he refused to take it.”
The verdict also says that he wasn’t told about his rights as a suspect. The defendant, who is from Ukraine, asked for an interpreter because he doesn’t speak Spanish and his English is “deficient.”
Spanish-language documents
The judgement further says that the defendant driver didn’t sign any of the papers that the Local Police “gave him only in Spanish, even though he didn’t know that language.”
The judge of the Criminal Court Number 2 in Benidorm says in the legal reasons for the acquittal that the evidence given is “insufficient” to change the driver’s presumption of innocence. He said that the accused doesn’t speak Spanish, speaks very little English, and asked for help from a Ukrainian interpreter both during the tests and in court.
He also didn’t sign the minutes since they were only in Spanish and he didn’t understand what they said. The court says that “the information on rights and instructions to the accused was not offered with all the guarantees to ensure his understanding and comprehension.”
The judge thinks that the accused shouldn’t have to follow rules that don’t make sense, and because there is no evidence of malice or ill intent in his actions, only ignorance and lack of knowledge, the evidence presented is not enough to change his presumption of innocence.
The Benidorm Local Police report says that the officers talked to the driver in English because he understood it well. They then told him that a second saliva sample would be taken, which was required, after the first test came back positive for cannabis.
But the driver angrily bit the swab until it broke and hurled it on the ground. He then said he wouldn’t finish the test, even though the cops say they told him he would be breaking the law. The cops wrote in their report that they didn’t see any visible symptoms on the motorist that could have made him drive poorly, but they did smell marijuana.
Author: Derek Appleton
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