The five accused of the homophobic murder of Samuel Luizwhose case It has been judged in the Provincial Court of A Coruña since last Wednesdaythey deny having been the authors of the horrible death of the young man. They had already done so during the preliminary investigation, insinuating the responsibility of others, exonerating their own and/or accusing each other of lying. No one admits to having killed Samueland everyone swears to tell the truth. But with this it sometimes happens that the more people try to distort it, the easier it is to guess who are the ones hiding it.
Thus, the first statements before the jury of two of the alleged murderers During the second day of the oral hearing last Thursday, they began to reveal striking contradictions between the five respective stories, all different from each other. Also with what is observed in the recordings and images of the pub where several of them They were partying that morning on July 3, 2021, from the traffic cameras on the promenade where Samuel was lynched in a true manhunt, as the prosecutor has defined it, and from the businesses surrounding the scene.
The first to declare were Alejandro Miguez29 years old, and Catherine Silva22, who were 25 and 19, respectively, when the crime occurred, of which they pleaded innocent. They had the right to testify at the end of the trial once they knew all the evidence, testimonies and expert opinions that were going to be carried out, that is, knowing which they incriminate them and in what sense. But they preferred to do it sooner. In a way it is a form of tell the jury that they have nothing to hide. Furthermore, they waived their right not to testify and agreed to answer all questions from all accusations and all defenses.
The only ones who are free
Alejandro, Álex for his friends, and Catherine, Katy for his, are the only ones who are free: they arrive and leave the trial on their own accord and as one more among the rest of the people. witnesses, lawyers, journalists, the public and relatives of the victims. On the contrary, Diego Mountain (29 years old), Kaio Amaral Silva (22) and Alejandro Freirewho they call Yumba (24), have been in provisional prison since 2021. Their image entering and leaving the courtroom handcuffed and escorted permanently by police officers, is very different from what they can afford.
The first to speak was Alejandro, who defined himself as a communicative and peaceful person who hates violence. To questions from the prosecutor, he explained that the night Samuel died he heard shouting a few meters from the Andén pub, next to Riazor beach, where they had spent several hours drinking in a booth with several friends and acquaintances, including Diego and Katy, who were dating at the time. When he approached, he saw the first punching him to someone else, and then to Yumba strangling him from behind with his arm. He approached to try to stop them but someone got in the way and prevented him.
“Don’t do anything, it’s Diego’s thing,” Katy told him. Then, he continued, he was “paralyzed” by the tumult of people who were chasing him. Samuel while trying to escape. Among them he again recognized Diego and Yumba, as well as the other two minors who have already been convicted for their participation in the event. Also three black people—not two, as the rest of the witnesses claim—who were trying to protect and take the victim. A hundred meters away, he saw Samuel They hunted him down and hit him again. and to kick him until he ended up collapsing on the asphalt.
Identifications in the videos
That is the first part of Míguez’s story, which the prosecutor slowly extracted from him, like someone extracting a cork stuck in an old bottle, asking him about every detail and, above all, to see if he could identify him by his face, clothes or appearance. to the people who appeared in itThe videos and frames of the recording of the lynching which he showed him for almost two hours. On almost half of the occasions in which the prosecutor asked him if those who appeared were him and other people, Míguez said he did not recognize himself or them, hiding behind the poor quality of the images.
Alejandro Míguez acknowledged having lied to the police in the first version he gave about Samuel’s death
That’s where the first ones begin contradictions. Because Katy, who testified after him, did name almost all of them without problems and instantly. Alejandro also did not know how to explain why, if it is true that abhors violencehe hadn’t even called an ambulance or the police when he saw Samuel mortally wounded and lying in the street without help after receiving the brutal beating in which he said he did not participate, but did observe. He also failed to specify why. had lied to the police In his first version, which he admitted to having changed later in court: “I was scared,” he simply said.
The thesis of the accusations is that it was precisely the fear of having killed Samuel which led Míguez and other defendants to go to the hospital where he was admitted dying and where he died shortly after. He claims that he did it because he had been warned that another friend was there, that same night, due to an alcohol coma. But he could not explain why, after returning home from the medical center, he went out again to meet with the rest of the alleged murderers in a park where, according to the accusation, they had met on WhatsApp to meet. “square versions” about Samuel’s death.
Messages in the WhatsApp group
The police know due to the messages in the group through which the gang communicated after the information from the phone of Diego, the first detainee and Katy’s boyfriend, was dumped. But they were not in Míguez’s terminal, which had been changed days before the investigators intervened. His call log and instant messaging from those days were also empty, as well as the Instagram app. He justified himself by saying that the one he had on the day of the events had fallen shortly after and had become unusable, and that he does not know why those messages, records and applications no longer appear on the new mobile phone with which he replaced it. The prosecutor reminded him that the police also have evidence that that same morning and after the beating, his device received and sent numerous calls to and from the rest of those involved.
During his testimony, Katy incurred a contradiction similar. He acknowledged that he went to the park with Diego after the attack, but denied that it was to make up. versions and alibis. She denies deleting that night’s messages from her device, but The police assure that they were eliminated. Katy even declared that she was not even aware that she was in the same WhatsApp group with her boyfriend and his friends, although she did not know what to answer when the prosecutor asked her what her phone number was, to immediately remind her that it is the same as appears assigned to the user “Morena” registered in that chat. The same morning that Samuel diedYumba had sent the group this message to call them to the meeting: “You’re all burning me up, you’re already taking a while to come to Europa Park.”
Katy is dark-skinned, is 1.56 meters tall and weighs 50 kilos, as she herself revealed in the trial when asked by her lawyer, who intends to demonstrate the impossibility that someone of her height and size could have participated. in the savage lynching of Samueland therefore having committed the crime of which he is accused of murder with cruelty and treachery aggravated by discrimination based on sexual orientation.
“It’s a girl”
On Wednesday, in the presentation of his initial report, his defender had used the expression “she is a girl” several times to refer to her. On Thursday, Katy insisted that her best friends are transgender and that she has no nothing against homosexuality. His defense strategy also tries to get the jury to rule out the homophobic motive for the crime. Katy even stressed that she would have been very angry if her boyfriend had called someone fagot trying to insult him. “Diego called everyone a fag“, he came to say.
These arguments are reminiscent of those of the sexists who pretend not to be because they have mothers and sisters, or those who seek to normalize racist, sexist or homophobic verbal attacks presuming more good faith in the aggressors the more they use them. But apart from those considerations, the truth is that Katy Yes, she has a girl’s face. Of course, a girl, from what she herself detailed about what happened the night Samuel died, and from the way she expressed it, who seems accustomed to physical and moral violence in their personal relationships.
Katy admitted that she had grabbed and pushed Lina, Samuel’s friend who I was trying to help him from Diego’s first attack.. And although she said that it was to separate herself from her boyfriend, she could not explain why she immediately told Alejandro Míguez not to get into the fight because it was “Diego’s thing.” Right after, he pointed out, he would have slapped him for having started the brawl. When it was all over, with Samuel almost dead and while walking with her boyfriend towards the park where she met the other defendants, Katy admitted to having confronted two girls and a boy who passed by her and whom she heard say: “Shut up, whore!” in a conversation between them. Seconds later, she slapped Diego again, which caused the trio she had crossed to think that he was the one hitting her. “They must have thought it was a matter of gender violence, but I told them it was me.”
At Thursday’s hearing, the statement of the two young men from Senegal who tried to help Samuel and those of two friends of the victim, but those of Katy and Alejandro took up the entire day and the previous ones have been postponed to this Friday and next Monday. Those of Diego, Kaio and Yuma will be at the end of the procedure, well into the month of November. There are more than 80 people left to testify, and the trial is going to be long and complex. It will last exactly as long as it takes to extract any lie, no matter how innocent it may seem, from the only true account of Samuel’s death.
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