At 84 years old, Pablo Rigo sits on the bench again. The octogenarian, who in February 2018 killed a thief who attacked his house in Porreres (Mallorca) with a hunting rifle, arrived at the Provincial Court this Friday using a cane at a slow pace. Nervous and crestfallen, he listened to the statement of Fredy Escobarone of the assailants and brother of the victim of the fatal shot from his gun. The young man, through tears, has said that he does not hold a grudge against “Mr. Pablo” nor does he consider him a “murderer.”
When his turn came, Rigo took the stand to defend that he shot in self-defense. «What was I supposed to do? He was coming for me. “I was the one attacked,” he repeated, visibly agitated.
Wearing a white shirt, blue wool jacket and sneakers, Rigo has declared before a new popular court the fear he felt when Mauricio and Fredy attacked his home. «They got very nervous, they said 200 [mil]», alluding to the money that they were supposedly looking for and did not find in the safe. “Until I decided to do something: defend myself.”
«He attacked me with the goat’s leg. I dodged the first blow. I thought they were going to kill me. What I did was defend myself. “They say that I did it wrong, but they don’t tell me what I should have done?” he asked again in the Court.
Pablo fired and the bullet hit Mauricio Escobar, who died hours later in the hospital. “Since that day my life has not been life: I am afraid,” confessed the old man, who also listed the wounds caused by the blows he received from the assailants. «They broke my spine, they broke my hand, they broke a tendon in my shoulder, my nose, etc. In the end I didn’t find out because I was on the ground and getting hit.” He lost consciousness and When he woke up he called the emergency services.
With his hearing impaired, Rigo asked for the questions to be repeated; He drank water twice, visibly nervous, and acknowledged that sitting on the bench for the second time was a “martyrdom” for him.
In December 2023, Rigo was acquitted for a series of defects in the verdict of the popular jury, which concluded without the sufficient majority of votes that the man killed Mauricio Escobar under mental disturbance. Later, the Superior Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands (TSJIB) ordered the trial to be repeated and declared the acquittal sentence null and void. “God presses but does not drown, although he is drowning me,” the man stated in a handwritten letter in gratitude for the wave of citizen support that asks for his acquittal.
«I’m emotionally devastated»
Almost a year later, Rigo faces this second trial with a new popular court. “I’m emotionally devastated.”
His statement began at 11:41 a.m. In the nearly 80 minutes of “martyrdom”, the old man explained that he shot a thief in a gesture of defense, trying to avoid the attack, but without any intention of ending the assailant’s life. He maintains that he was not wearing glasses, so he could not distinguish either. Fredy says that he did have them.
«They hit me, I was the one attacked. They were coming for me. “Why did they bring the goat’s legs and rip off the phone first?” replied the octogenarian, visibly agitated at the story of Fredy Escobar, who insisted that he did not hit Rigo until he saw him with the shotgun. «Yes he hit me. “Or what are you calling for twisting my arm at the entrance to my house, covering my mouth and grabbing me by the neck?” he responded.
Two months earlier, in December 2017, Rigo suffered a first robbery. He suspects that it was Fredy and Mauricio because “they had the same voice and the method was the same and they were barefoot.”
The first time they gagged him with zip ties, abandoned him in the basement and took the key to the garage. In the second robbery, he was approached at the entrance. They locked his wife in a room and he went down to the basement to open the safe. When he went back up to the ground floor, Rigo took the shotgun – which was already loaded – as a “deterrent” measure and only fired when he saw Fredy approaching to hit him with a goat’s leg. “I yelled ‘get out’ at them, but I couldn’t think they would attack me.”
Rigo insists that he lost his glasses during the assault and that he was not wearing them at the time of the shooting, but searching for them was not a priority. He only fired once and had two cartridges. Why? They asked him. “Because I didn’t have time anymore.”
«They thought that since he was older he was defenseless and they confused shit with peaceful. It is not the same,” added Rigo, who has changed lawyers three times. His current lawyer, Eduardo Valdivia, demands the acquittal of the old man, alleging that he acted in self-defense.
Previously, Fredy Escobar, one of the two assailants, testified. The man has insisted that the pact was to steal the money from the safe at Rigo’s house and leave. «I was late because my backpack was torn. When we got up, I found Pablo with the shotgun pointing at us. Mauricio went up the stairs first and stopped when he saw her. ‘I’ll kill you’, boom. “And the shotgun went off.”
For Fredy everything is “torture.” «It is not easy to sit down a second time. My life is destroyed. I don’t want to blame this man. He is not a murderer and I have no grudge against him,” he said between tears while remembering the memory of his deceased brother. «He was the person I loved most in the world. “I want to end this now,” he said through tears, visibly affected, after which the judge decided to take a break.
According to his story, the old man was not hit and was wearing his glasses when he shot. «I rush towards him. He had the shotgun like this (open). There we started a struggle, I hit him repeatedly with the shotgun to make him drop it and he fell to the ground. He holds the shotgun with both hands. The kickstand was on the ground. I punch him in the face. “When Pablo Rigo fell to the ground he didn’t want to let go of the shotgun.” Finally he took it off, Fredy picked up his seriously injured brother and left the house.
The thief does not know where he threw the two backpacks full of money. «I have a lot of empathy towards him, he could be my grandfather. The only thing I want to emphasize is the truth. “He didn’t want to do what happened,” he said while Pablo looked down. «I am very sure that if I had hit aggressively I would not be sitting. It’s the only thing that consoles me. I know what happened in the house. Before that shot, at no time did I attack him. “I made a bad decision and I am paying for it.”
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