Logroño, (EFE).- “Forgiveness is worthless, it only increases the pain of the family,” Gonzalo Martín, Álex’s great-uncle, the 9-year-old boy allegedly murdered and sexually assaulted by Francisco Javier, assured this Tuesday Almeida, who has apologized at the end of the trial.
Almeida has affirmed in the oral hearing that he did not have “the intention of killing the little boy at any time” and has apologized to the family and to all those who have “done damage” for the events that occurred in Lardero (La Rioja) on October 28 of 2021.
“Today we left truly devastated. It has been very hard, it makes you want to pounce on him”, Martín stressed in statements to journalists at the door of the Palace of Justice in Logroño, where the trial with a people’s court held at the Provincial Court since last March 20 has concluded. .
Martín, who has not missed any of the seven sessions, has wrapped up Álex’s parents in some of them, who, listening to Almeida today, “there was a moment in which they would have left the room anyway”, has explained.
The also spokesman for the family has verified that the story made this day by the accused has been “totally different from that of the first day, but the facts are proven: he is a predator and nothing more.”
Almeida had been on probation since April 2020 for a 30-year prison sentence for the murder and sexual assault of a real estate agent in Logroño in 1998; and, previously, he was sentenced to 7 years in prison for another sexual assault on a minor in 1993.
a disgusting being
For her part, Alicia Redondo, the lawyer who exercises the private prosecution, for Álex’s parents, and the popular one, on behalf of the Clara Campoamor association, has stressed to journalists that Almeida is “a disgusting being” and, after his statement at trial, “has only added to the pain and suffering” of the family, something that has “turned my stomach”.
“He likes to talk. In the trial for the real estate crime, I also use words very similar to those of today and they are a way of proving how depraved and disgusting it is, ”he stressed.
In his opinion, Almeida knows the evidence in this process, that the evidence is “forceful” and that he is guilty.
He has also said that the defendant’s intervention has seemed more “a cheap ‘speech’ (speech) of a beginning lawyer than of someone who is sorry or really cares about what has happened.”
Redondo has rejected the application of the mitigation of confession, as requested by the defense lawyer, because he did not acknowledge the facts before the plenary when he had the opportunity to testify in the first session of the trial; and he has stressed that there has been no repair of the damage, although this Tuesday Almeida has apologized to the family.
“How is forgiveness from someone who has killed a 9-year-old child going to help? That forgiveness is useless, not even from a legal point of view ”, this lawyer insisted.
Lastly, he has hoped that the guilty verdict by the jury will be “fast” and will begin deliberating tomorrow when the magistrate delivers the object of the verdict.