Highly qualified undue delays. This is the concept by which the requests for conviction have been mitigated for six of the 21 prosecuted for the altercations of the first ‘Surround the Congress’, on September 25, 2012, the massive protest in front of the Lower House against the corruption of the Government and bipartisanship, within the framework of 15M and the economic crisis.
These six defendants have reached an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office and have admitted to being the perpetrators of a crime of public disorder. The Public Prosecutor’s Office has reduced their sentencing request by two degrees due to the excessive time that has passed since the case was initiated and the beginning of the trial and is now asking for eleven months in prison for them, but replaceable with a fine. For two of them he also requests eleven months for a crime of aggravated attack with use of a dangerous instrument and for three, two months and twenty days of prison for basic attack. No one will go to prison.
For the remaining 15 defendants, who do not admit their guilt, the trial, which began on the 18th, continues and will end this Friday. Their defenses hope that the Prosecutor’s Office will apply to those who are finally convicted the mitigating circumstance of highly qualified undue delays, just as it has done with the six mentioned above, legal sources indicate. Public.
Twelve years is an extraordinary delay for Justice to hold a trial, which is why the Penal Code establishes this circumstance as a mitigating circumstance.
He lawyer Daniel Amelanga lawyer for some of the defendants, considers that the 12 years of waiting with the status of defendant and with requests for prison by the Prosecutor’s Office is already a punishment in itself: between three and eight years in prison for each of the 21 accused.
“It is logical that the sentences are mitigated in the face of a delay of so many years. The people accused in this procedure have been prevented from making long-term plans because of this delay,” says Amelang.
The lawyer, of Legal Network officereveals that some of his clients have scrapped long-term work plans due to the possibility of ending up in jail. Some have even rethought parenthood all this time for the same reason.
A historic protest
The demonstration ‘Surround Congress’ on September 25, 2012 was tremendous. Around 6,000 people gathered peacefully in the Plaza de Neptuno in Madrid, very close to the Congress of Deputies. They protested against the democratic crisis that had turned the seat of popular sovereignty into an entity with its back turned to the citizens and against the PP Government’s recipes to alleviate the economic crisis, which greatly harmed the working classes.
During the demonstration, authorized by the Government delegation, then in the hands of Cristina Cifuentes, who would later become president of the Community of Madrid, the Police charged against the protesters. The protest ended up being broken up by police charges. The final balance was 34 arrested and 64 injured, 27 of them police officers.
Twelve years later, 15 people are being tried, accused of public disorder, attacks on authority, resistance, damage and injuries to police officers. From the Ministry of the Interior of the Rajoy Government, whose leadership is now being prosecuted for the actions of its ‘political brigade’ in the Kitchen case, An attempt was made to criminalize the protest as if it had been a crime against the high institutions of the State.
However, the actions of the riot police have not received the same criminal reproach. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) condemned Spain in 2021 for not adequately investigating a police attack that occurred after the protest on September 25, 2012. The Spanish State compensated the plaintiff with 1,000 euros for moral damages.
The events occurred on September 29, 2012, days after the ‘Surround Congress’ protest. After the demonstration, several riot police entered a bar without justification and dragged several people outside, including the plaintiff, hitting them repeatedly and causing head injuries. The medical injury report stated that the victim had suffered a “contused incised wound to the scalp with abundant bleeding, mild head trauma and multiple contusions.”
The judicial path that the victim took was in vain: “It is not proven that the injuries are a consequence of intentional or negligent action” by the police, the Spanish courts said. The ECHR, however, ruled that the complaint had not been adequately investigated, violating the woman’s right to effective judicial protection.
“Police repression has gone unpunished, it has been ignored,” says lawyer Daniel Amelang, who recalls that the then Government delegate in Madrid criminalized the protest a week before. “Complaints of police mistreatment have been ignored when there are videos where they are confirmed,” he adds.
16 years of judicial nightmare
The four download link website managers SeriesYonkis They have spent 16 years of their lives immersed in a judicial nightmare until on the 18th they were acquitted by the Supreme Court.
All this time they have lived with a pending issue that had not been resolved, pending lawyers, courts and sentences, ruined by the economic cost that all this entails and devastated by the personal and social costs that they had suffered since they were accused of being hackers. when in reality they were not.
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