The 20-year-old man arrested for the murder of Mateo, the 11-year-old boy who was stabbed to death last Sunday in Mocejón (Toledo, 5,000 inhabitants), has been sent to provisional prison without bail by order of the investigating court number 3 of Toledo, according to sources from the High Court of Justice of Castilla La-Mancha. The investigating magistrate accuses the young Juan PC of murder and asks the penitentiary institutions to transfer him to a “center, unit, or department appropriate” to his “disability situation”. The judge has also lifted the secrecy of the case, which is still being investigated.
Before taking the statement, the investigating judge requested a report from the forensic doctor, the result of which determined the need to carry out the questioning of the suspect with adaptations to his disability, as stated in article 109 of the Criminal Procedure Act (LECrim). This adaptation consisted, as explained by the high court, in appointing a facilitator who assisted the suspect throughout his statement before the magistrate, with the intention of helping him understand and be understood. Apart from this initial forensic report, the investigating judge also agreed to request a forensic opinion on the suspect’s imputability, which must be carried out during the instruction of the judicial procedure.
When a pretrial prisoner is admitted to a penitentiary, an assessment is carried out by the technical team in which the case is studied and then the placement of the new inmate is decided based on his specific needs, according to sources from penitentiary institutions. The courts are responsible for agreeing to send a prisoner to a psychiatric penitentiary centre, as stated in the penitentiary regulations, which list the circumstances in which this decision can be taken and which depend on the issuance of forensic reports.
Investigators have been working at a frenetic pace since 10:00 on Sunday, when the boy was fatally stabbed while he was playing football with friends at the municipal sports centre. The results of the analysis of the knife “with human biological remains” found on Wednesday in a vacant lot in the municipality, near the house of the father of the arrested man, are still pending. The weapon had no apparent traces of blood, but it may be compatible with the injuries suffered by the boy, added sources from the Civil Guard. The knife – with a sharp point and brown handle, similar to those used to cut steaks – was taken to the Civil Guard’s Criminalistics Laboratory to be analysed for biological remains of both the alleged perpetrator and the victim.
The incident occurred at ten o’clock on Sunday morning, when the victim was playing with two other minors at the Ángel Tardío sports facility, located on a hill on the outskirts of the town, next to an area of residential chalets. At that moment, a young man with his face covered entered the facilities, went towards the group of minors and attacked the boy. After the stabbing, he fled. From the first moment, both the family spokesperson, Asell Sánchez-Vicente, and the residents of this small town indicated that the perpetrator must have known the town, since he accessed through a gap in a wire fence of the facility, which was closed at that time.
As soon as the attack was known, the so-called operation cage was activated, in which the agents kept the accesses to the town under surveillance and any suspicious movement was monitored, also from the air. The operation also had the help of the underwater activities group of the Civil Guard. The secrecy of the actions, imposed by the investigating court number 3 of Toledo, has meant that the investigations of the agents during these days have been made known in dribs and drabs.
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The arrest of the young man – who admitted part of the events to the Civil Guard agents, according to sources consulted – took place on Monday early in the afternoon. Then the searches began at the father’s house – where the arrested man spends time, although he lives in Madrid with his mother – and at his grandmother’s house, where he supposedly went on Sunday, the day of the crime against the boy Mateo. According to the account of the father, called Fernando, his son went out on Sunday morning, as he did every day, to the countryside, where he usually runs and walks. Afterwards he went to his grandmother’s house, as was his custom, and the grandmother changed his clothes. At about 11:00, when Mateo’s crime had already taken place, father and son went to mass together and then returned to his grandmother’s house.
The father of the detainee has stated that his son has a 75% intellectual disability and that he does not take medication. According to his testimony, the young man has no social skills and responded affirmatively to what the agents asked him. He also added that he had spoken to him and said “things that did not make sense”, such as that he “saw masks”. Sources close to the investigation say that he displayed incoherent and alienated behaviour. Another source adds that he spoke of himself in the third person and said that he had felt “like he was in a video game”.
The boy Mateo was buried yesterday in his village in an emotional ceremony in which the neighbours supported the family and acquaintances. The family thanked the support and coverage of the media and the work of the Security Forces and Corps, the Provincial Council of Toledo and the Government Delegation. The relatives expressed their condemnation for the “cruel attack” to which their relative and spokesperson Asell Sánchez has been subjected for asking that no one be criminalised “for their ethnicity, race, colour, or belief” and that the Civil Guard be allowed to work to catch the aggressor. “It has been our shield in these difficult times that we have had to live through.” They also asked for calm from the neighbours and respect for the family of the person arrested in the case. “We do not want revenge, we want justice and for the full weight of the law to fall on the person who murdered Mateo,” they asked.
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