Logroño, Mar 24 (EFE).- A 12-year-old girl who lives in the Lardero neighborhood where she was murdered and sexually assaulted, 9-year-old Álex, assured that the alleged criminal, Francisco Javier Almeida, made her “scared ”, because he followed him to his building and one day he invited him to his house to help him clean a cage with little birds.
In the fifth session of the trial with a people’s court that is held in the Provincial Court of Logroño for this crime, which occurred on October 28, 2021, the recordings made during the investigation of this girl and another 12-year-old friend of hers have been reproduced, who knew Almeida from seeing him in the area.
The minor has explained that Almeida used to greet her when he saw her in the area and she, out of politeness, responded to him; but when she one day invited him to go up to her house, she replied that she had to ask her mother for permission and the defendant then discarded her plan.
Other times he followed her and another neighbor friend of hers through Lardero, so the girls chose to enter their urbanization through the garage so that the defendant would not know where they lived; and he also stayed hidden in dark areas of the neighborhood to observe the minors.
These girls and their group of friends knew the building where Almeida lived, a few meters from a school and a playground, and he used to look at them from the window of the common area of his building, where he settled in April 2020, when he was on probation for a murder and sexual assault on a woman in Logroño in 1998, with a 30-year sentence.
“From his window he was trying to take photos with his phone. I asked one of my friends to photograph him in case something happened one day. We did well to take that photo ”, he told the psychologist who assisted him during her statement.
“BEWARE OF THE OLD MAN”
On the afternoon of October 28, 2021, she saw Almeida sitting on a park bench located next to the picnic area where Álex dined with his family, so this girl, when she went home with her grandmother, told her friends who stayed there to be “careful with the old man”.
The mother of this girl called her around 8:30 p.m. to tell her that a child had disappeared and the minor did not hesitate to say that “the old man took him,” as they referred to Almeida in their group of friends.
“Let justice be done,” he stressed in his statement.
At the hearing, the recording of the testimony of another 12-year-old boy was also reproduced, one of the friends who stayed in the park and who was with Álex that afternoon, whom he knew.
Almeida gave this boy a “bad vibe” because he used to sit in the Entre Ríos park to watch the younger children and his group of friends.
As he was “somewhat afraid”, that afternoon he went home and left the defendant there sitting on one of the benches, but he did not notice if Álex stayed in the area.
Shortly after, when her mother called her to ask if she had seen Álex because he had disappeared, she remembered the photo they had taken of her and asked her friend to identify the portal where the defendant lived.
PERMANENT MOURNING
At this Friday’s hearing, two psychologists who treat Álex’s parents have testified, whose diagnosis has coincided with that of the two psychologists and the criminologist who have made the forensic report on the repercussions of Álex’s murder on his family, who have qualified that moral suffering cannot be measured, but mental injuries can.
The latter have explained that the mother, “despite having undergone treatment, the consequences of her son’s death prevent her from leading a normal life due to the permanent grief she suffers.”
According to this report, the father is in a situation of affective blockage and dullness, he is unable to verbalize anything related to the night of the events and will also suffer permanent consequences.
Álex’s brother, who was 7 years old when the events occurred, also suffers from post-traumatic stress, he has been deprived of living in a healthy family, he has mental injuries that affect the development of his brain.
