Every time they enter and leave the Provincial Court of A Coruñaa swarm of journalists armed with cameras, cell phones and microphones They assault the lawyers of the Samuel casejust before they reach the steps under the sign that presides over the entrance to the building and which reads: Tobacco Factory. It happens that the headquarters of the judicial body is located in what during the 19th century and part of the 20th was a factory for these tasks, and those who rehabilitated it a decade ago decided to maintain its old designation in bronze letters on the wall.
Many of the journalists covering the trialpart of the public that attends the sessions and some of the five lawyers of the many others accused of killing Samuel Luizthey are smokers. And it is common to see them during breaks in the hearing with their cell phone pressed to their ear or commenting on the latest news about the trial, cigarette in hand at the top of the stairs under the aforementioned legend, which has become photocall of media since the trial began just two weeks ago. Then, at the beginning of the sessions, the five lawyers asked for the free acquittal of their clients: Diego Montañana, Catherine Silva, Kaio Amaral Silva, Alejandro Miguez and Alejandro Freire.
The defenses base their strategies on defending that your clients are innocent of the crimes of which they are accused – murder with violence and treachery with the aggravating factor of homophobia in the first two cases and robbery with violence in the case of Kaio Amaral -, and for convincing the members of the jury of the inconsistency of documentary evidence and the lack of compelling testimonies that indicate that they actively and decisively participated in the lynching of Samuel. And that it was not a homophobic crime. His plan also rests on underscoring his personal confidence in his innocence, both inside the courtroom and in his daily statements to the media.
“I hang up my robe If I’m wrong,” he said on the first day Luciano Prado del Ríodefender of Catherine Silva, the only woman on the bench and for whom the accusations call for 25 years in prison. When the events occurred she was the girlfriend of Diego Mountainaccused of initiating the brutal attack against Samuel, in his presence and with his breath. Another 25 years are requested for him.
Mountain’s lawyer, Luis Salgado Carbajalesmaintains a thesis similar to that of Prado, as he stated in his initial statement on October 16: “My intention is not to deceive you. If during this hearing the evidence leads me to conclude that Diego hit Samuel with the intention of causing his deathI will change my rating and my request for acquittal. But it is up to you to be fair, not vigilante,” he claimed on the first day, pointing directly to the conscience of the jurors.
“My client is not a murderer”
The lawyer of Alejandro Miguez –22 years in prison–, Jose Manuel Ferreirostressed that day along the same lines: “My client will be a coward, a pile of trash, he will deserve his contempt for not having helped Samuel. But he is not a murderer,” he said.
Defenses are concerned about parallel trial that the accused may have suffered due to the social repercussion of the crime, squeezed to the extreme, due to its brutality, in the gatherings and debates that manage the states of public opinion. And that, with all legitimacy, they try to dismantle with legal arguments any intoxication that could affect the jury’s verdict.
“Innocence is presumed, not proven, said the lawyer of Alejandro Freire –22 years in prison–, Diego Freire Headingappealing to the most obvious of procedural criminal law. The one of Kaio Amaral Silva –27 years of imprisonment– , Jose Ramon Sierra SanchezHe even recalled the case of Dolores Vázquezconvicted in 2001 by a popular jury for the murder of Rocío Wanninkhof and later acquitted when the real murderer was discovered, almost by chance and thanks to an accurate DNA test. “Dolores was from Betanzos, very close to here,” Sierra reminded the jury.
The five lawyers are expert criminal lawyers, and at least four are renowned in the judicial world for having participated in cases that are not as high-profile as Samuel’s, but are well-known in the black chronicle of the local, regional and state press.
Defender of “El Chicle”
Sierra was a defender of José Enrique Abuín, the Gumconvicted of the murder of Diana Quer in 2016 A Probra do Caramiñal (A Coruña). Prado carried out the private accusation in the Jessica Mendezdied in 2022 by her ex-partner in the town of Verdido, in Barros (Pontevedra). Luis Salgado defended one of the accused of the crime known as A Esmorga, in Ourense, for the death of the Romanian citizen in 2014 Alexandru Walter. Since last January, Jose Manuel Ferreiro represents a young man accused of kicking his father to death in Narón (Ferrol, A Coruña).
During the breaks in the trial for Samuel’s death – there were none this Tuesday, because the judge has decided to give the jury a break and has suspended the sessions until Wednesday –, several of the lawyers share cigarettes and moments of lively huddle together. the access stairs to the Provincial Courtright under the sign of the old tobacco factory. Or they share coffee with a pincho in one of the surrounding bars.
The easy thing, from the outside, is to venture that they are exchanging opinions on the statement of a witness, on the questions of the prosecutor and the lawyers of the accusations – who, by the way, do not smoke -, or on some of the procedural indications of the judge
It’s easy, because you can also sense that beneath that appearance of good vibes rest opposing interests: his clients They accuse each other of being responsible for the crime.and several eyewitnesses, even on the part, point to the guilt of some when they try to exonerate others. And they point out that They killed Samuel among all because they sensed in him a sexual condition that they despised.
The first feminist strike in Galicia
Almost 167 years ago, in December 1857, in the Tobacco Factory of A Coruña, where the Provincial Court is now based, the the first feminist strike in Galiciaone of the first in Spain and the driving force of the working women’s union movement. More than 4,000 cigarette workers, many of them underage girls who were not even 14 years old, ignited the entire city with their protests against the exploitation to which they were subjected, against the precariousness of their conditions and against the mechanization that threatened their jobs.
It is impossible to get out of a break the oral hearing of the trial of Samuel and lighting a cigarette in the rain and the sign of the old tobacco factory without remembering it, and without wondering what he would think of the cigarette makers, or how they would have reacted to his death.
It doesn’t matter. Although it is the same smoke, the cold wind of the Coruña autumn carries the blue volutes to the sea along with the words that the defense lawyers for those accused of killing Samuel They are displayed every day at the entrance to the Provincial Court and in the hearing room. “They are innocent.” Really? Smoking kills.
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