The Military Chamber of the Supreme Court has increased to almost six years in prison – five years, 11 months and 15 days – the sentence imposed on Sergeant Saúl Antonio Guil Pérez, who on March 25, 2019 shot and killed legionnaire Alejandro Jiménez Cruz, 21 years old, during some exercises at the Agost shooting range (Alicante). In addition, he has condemned two of his superiors for trying to cover up what happened: Captain Antonio Cabello, responsible for guaranteeing the security of the exercise, has imposed one year in prison for a crime of disobedience; and Lieutenant Pablo Fernández Sosa, three years for the crimes of disobedience and against the effectiveness of the service.
Sergeant Guil was sentenced on March 29 to two years, eight months and 26 days in prison by the Territorial Military Court of Seville for the crime of reckless homicide, but the Supreme Court, at the request of the prosecution and the private prosecution, has increased his sentence to four years, nine months and 15 days because he considered the latter “more appropriate and proportionate to the serious recklessness observed by the sergeant during a combat training exercise with live fire, when shooting outside the targets.” fixed and above the positions occupied by some of the participants in it.” In addition, it confirms the 14-month prison sentence imposed on the non-commissioned officer for two crimes of abuse of authority against the legionnaire Francisco Jordi Páez, the only witness who told the investigators the truth of what happened and broke the pact of silence imposed on the company. to cover up the homicide. Altogether, his sentence amounts to almost six years in prison.
However, the greatest novelty occurs in the classification of the acts committed by the two officers who were acquitted by the Seville court and have now been convicted by the Supreme Court. The sentence estimates that the lieutenant committed a crime against the effectiveness of the service, resulting in death, by allowing his subordinate, the sergeant, to extend the execution of the live shooting exercise beyond what was ordered and to fire unforeseen shots “generating a legally disapproved danger.”
He also condemns the lieutenant and his superior, the captain, for a completed crime of disobedience because, knowing the order of the Judicial Police team that no one enter the place where the events had occurred and a visual inspection was planned to be carried out the next day , they did not comply. It was the superior officer who ordered a false reconstruction of what happened on the maneuvering field, bypassing the seal that the Civil Guard had placed.
According to the proven facts, when the shooting exercise had already ended, Sergeant Guil shouted “enemy in front, fire at the apron at twelve” and fired at least seven shots with his HK G36 rifle above the soldiers. One of those projectiles “hit the legionary knight Jiménez Cruz,” who was about 15 meters away in a kneeling position on the ground, causing him a fatal wound. The sentence explains that that same night Captain Cabello met with the company's commanders and told them that it had been an accident caused by a ricochet – although, according to expert reports, it was a “direct shot” – and that They had to declare that he was at the ammunition post during the exercise, which was not true.
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The next day, he ordered his subordinates to go to the shooting range, which was sealed off, before the Civil Guard did so, to carry out a simulated reconstruction of the events; and that they told the investigators that they were five meters lower than where they actually were when the fatal shot was fired, so they were placed in positions far from their true positions during the police reconstruction. Two days after the events, in a meeting with the soldiers under his command, he mocked the Civil Guard agents, throwing his cell phone to the ground when he saw that they were calling him; and on April 24, in the first judicial reconstruction, he supported the attitude of Sergeant Guil, who was intimidating the only soldier who told the truth about what happened – “Leave him alone, he wants to be the bride at all the weddings!” he said to the non-commissioned officer, until he was expelled by the judge. In addition, he submitted to his superior a report on the circumstances surrounding the legionnaire's death, full of falsehoods.
The Supreme Court has not only increased the penalties, but has also increased the compensation to be paid to the parents of the deceased legionnaire from the 208,000 euros set by the Seville court to 250,000 (125,000 for each) and has ratified the civil liability of the insurer (which must compensate each parent with 75,000 euros), as well as the subsidiary responsibility of the State. It has also increased the sergeant's civil liability from 600 to 3,000 euros for two crimes of abuse of authority against the legionnaire who told the truth about what happened and whom he humiliated in public with insults such as “coward” and “faggot.”
The sentence has a dissenting vote from the president of the Military Chamber, Jacobo Barja de Quiroga, who considers that Sergeant Guil committed a crime of intentional and not reckless homicide, since “he knew the concrete danger (not the abstract one that it entails). the handling of a weapon like the one he carried) that he generated with his action.” The magistrate considers it surprising that the possible commission of a crime of homicide by omission by the captain who, despite the fact that he was the director of the live fire combat training exercise, the security officer and the data control, was not present at the scene when the events occurred. “His position as guarantor that he had had to be examined, as well as the willful omission of his functions, as he was not in the place he should be, since this appears in the facts declared proven,” he concludes.
Sergeant Guil is the only one who will be expelled from the Army, since the sentence imposed by the Supreme Court on Captain Cabello and Lieutenant Fernández Sosa does not imply the loss of their military employment. In the sentence initially handed down by the Territorial Court of Seville, not even the first lost his status as a member of the Armed Forces.
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