Logroño (EFE).- The public, private and popular accusations against Francisco Javier Almeida, sentenced to permanent reviewable prison for the treacherous murder and sexual assault of Alex, a 9-year-old boy in Lardero (La Rioja), on October 28 of 2021, they have ratified this Tuesday that there was treachery in the crime.
The Superior Court of Justice (TSJ) of La Rioja has held a hearing on the appeal filed by Almeida against the sentence imposed on him for this crime, a session in which the accusations have requested that the sentence be ratified in all its terms.
The Provincial Court of La Rioja, after the jury trial held in Logroño last March, sentenced Almeida to permanent reviewable prison for the treacherous murder of Álex and to 15 years in prison for the sexual assault on this child, who was playing in a park when the defendant tricked him into his home.
In the session this Tuesday and which has been chaired by the president of the La Rioja TSJ, Javier Marca, the parties have intervened and the convicted person has also attended, transferred to Logroño from the Herrera de la Mancha prison (Ciudad Real), although he has not intervened at the oral hearing and who was on probation since April 2020.
In the appeal, Almeida’s defense has argued that treachery has been improperly applied because, as he has said, the convicted person had no intention of killing the minor and, therefore, has requested that the principle of “in dubio pro reo”.
He has requested that the two mitigating factors of reparation for the damage caused and confession be applied, which have not been taken into account in the sentence.
It has also indicated that if Almeida had wanted to kill the child, he would have done so immediately and, when the minor had died, he left the home to “seek help with the minor in his arms”, with the intention of meaning that “he wanted to repair the damage and that he was not a murderer.”
clear intent to kill
The prosecutor and the private accusations filed by Álex’s family and popular on behalf of the Clara Campoamor Association have argued in the oral hearing that these extenuating circumstances were completely disproved in the trial and, furthermore, they have insisted that this crime was murder treacherous.
They have been ratified in that the expert evidence, including those of the forensics, certify that there was a “clear intention” to kill the child, since, after sexually assaulting him, he wrapped his arm around his neck until he suffocated.
It was an intentional, treacherous and homicidal death, without the child having the possibility of defense, the three accusations have had an impact and have stressed that Almeida did not think at any time about the harm to the victim and his family, nor did he notify the emergency services after the event, but instead tried to hide the body, although he was surprised by the Police when he was leaving his home.
Almeida had been on probation since April 2020 for a sentence of 30 years in prison 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 sexually assaulting a minor in 1993 in the capital of La Rioja.
The family is in the same pain
After the oral hearing, the lawyer representing the private and popular accusations, Alicia Redondo, told journalists that she hopes that the sentence will be confirmed because the reasons for the appeal presented by the convicted person “are not sustained.”
“We have had to spend an unpleasant time (at the oral hearing of the appeal) and hear (from the defense) that there was no intention to kill Álex or that we are not dealing with a murderer, which is totally uncertain,” as it turned out. dismantled, he said, in the evidence provided in this judicial proceeding.
In Álex’s family, the pain “is very present”, he needs the judicial procedure to end as soon as possible and to know that Almeida “is not going to step on the street again. They don’t stop being just as restless and with the same pain. There is no rest with this matter until it is completely finished and, therefore, hopefully it will be to confirm this sentence.
The sentence handed down by the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the TSJ of La Rioja may be appealed before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court and, in the event that it is finally so, “we will be there in the fight and we will continue forward,” he stressed.