Logroño, Apr 19 (EFE).- Francisco Javier Almeida has asked his lawyer to appeal the sentence that condemns him to permanent reviewable prison for the murder with treachery and 15 years in prison for the sexual assault on the 9-year-old boy Álex, which occurred in the Riojan municipality of Lardero in 2021.
According to sources close to Almeida’s defense reported to EFE on Wednesday, the prisoner telephoned his public defender on Tuesday as soon as he learned of the conviction through the media.
The judicial decision of the Provincial Court of La Rioja, of more than 200 pages, was communicated to the parties this Tuesday and can be appealed within a period of 20 days.
The appeal must be filed before the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of La Rioja and the sentence handed down by this may also be appealed before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court.
Almeida, who is imprisoned in the Herrera de la Mancha prison (Ciudad Real), only informed his lawyer of his desire to appeal, without specifying his state of mind after hearing the sentence, the same sources have added.
The sentence, the maximum contained in the Penal Code, was requested by the prosecutor and the private prosecutions, exercised by the minor’s family; and popular, on behalf of the Clara Campoamor Association, during the trial, which lasted seven days and was held with a jury.
This jury, on March 30, unanimously found Almeida, who is now 56 years old, guilty of the crimes of murder and sexual assault on a minor with “extreme violence” and without him having the possibility of defending himself.
When these events occurred, on October 28, 2021, 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.
Before, he had already been sentenced to another 7 years in prison for sexually assaulting a minor in 1993 in the capital of La Rioja.