The octogenarian who killed a thief in Mallorca is declared innocent after the acquittal was annulled

After two days of deliberation, the new popular court – different from the first trial – considers that Pablo Rigo is innocent of murder for which the prosecutor demanded three years in prison.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office initially requested four years in prison for Rigo but reduced it to three when considering the mitigating circumstance of undue delays. The prosecutor maintained her accusation by considering that the owner who suffered the assault did not defend his life, but rather “came out for them.” [los ladrones] to prevent nearly 15,000 euros that he had in a safe from being stolen. At the same time, the prosecutor demanded sentences totaling 16 years in prison for the three thieves.

The accusation, brought by the mother of the deceased assailant, requests that the elderly man compensate the family with 160,000 eurosin addition to a 10-year prison sentence for ending the robber’s life, in his opinion, in cold blood. Mauricio Escobar, 25, died as a result of a shot he received in the abdomen from the hunting shotgun that Rigo had previously loaded.

The events date back to February 24, 2018 when Fredy and Mauricio Escobar, two 25-year-old Colombian brothers, assaulted the owner with goat legs when the old man was leaving his home. They grabbed him by the neck and covered his mouth so he wouldn’t scream. They locked his wife in a room. They tore out the landline telephone cable and took the owner to the basement to open the safe for them. «I thought they were killing us. “They say I didn’t do it right, but what was I supposed to do?” declared the old man before the jury.

With a cane and a slow walk, Pablo Rigo appeared 14 days ago before a new popular court. He confessed that it was a “martyrdom” to undergo this second trial at his age and assumed that, since the robbery, “his life was no life” and he was “destroyed.” In his statement lasting nearly 80 minutes on November 8, the man alleged that he shot the thief in a gesture of defenseand without the glasses on, to avoid the attack, but without any intention of ending the assailant’s life.

On the contrary, Fredy Escobar, the thief who survived, denied at all times having used violence against Rigo or his wife until the moment of the shot and maintained that the old man shot them when they were already leaving the house with their backpacks loaded with money. However, the robber exonerated the octogenarian by ensuring that he did not “He held a grudge” against “Don Pablo”, whom he believes is not a “murderer”. Just 24 hours after testifying, the 32-year-old Colombian was arrested for beating another man in a squat in Palma on November 9, 2024. He is currently in prison.

Second trial

A year ago, the octogenarian was found guilty by a popular court with an insufficient majority of five votes, despite the fact that seven were needed. This unusual error went unnoticed until days later when it was detected and created great confusion and uncertainty. The president of the people’s court declared Rigo’s guilty verdict null and void. The Balearic Prosecutor’s Office asked the Court that the old man be retried. As a consequence, the magistrate ordered the trial to be repeated in the Superior Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands without issuing a sentence.

Pablo Rigo changed lawyers and his new lawyer then requested acquittal, considering that there was not a sufficient majority of votes to declare him guilty. The judge ruled out an acquittal ruling, arguing that “the defect outlined prevented us from knowing with certainty the decision that the Jury would have made.” Subsequently, the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the TSJB upheld the appeal filed by Pablo Rigo’s defense and revoked the declaration of nullity of the verdict. The Chamber considered that ““There were no reasons to justify the cancellation.”. Later it was the Provincial Court that acquitted the old man.

On May 7, the Court held a hearing in which the Prosecutor’s Office requested the annulment of the sentence and therefore the repetition of the trial. Rigo’s defense argued that the appeal should not be admitted and the acquittal should be confirmed.

Now represented by a new lawyer – he has changed lawyers three times – Pablo Rigo sat on the bench again on November 8 and told the Court about the fear that occurred when the brothers Escobar robbed his home in February 2018 for the second time. He suspects that they were the same ones who had robbed him two months ago with the same method and with bare feet.

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,” he said.

Fredy Escobar explained that the pact with the two ringleaders who planned the assault was to steal the money from the safe in Rigo’s house and leave, not kill them. He assured that the owner of the house surprised them with the gun when they were leaving with backpacks full of money: “Mauricio went up the stairs first and stopped when he saw her. ‘I’ll kill you’, boom. “And the shotgun went off.”

Rigo’s lawyer, Eduardo Valvidia, asked the jury to take into account that the assailants violated his “sacred” home and his physical integrity. «They humiliate him, they beat him, they rob him… And they try to take the lives of him and his wife. We have the right to defend ourselves. Here, in Chicago and in Sebastopol,” he concluded.

Thus ends the “martyrdom” for Pablo Rigo, protagonist of one of the recent episodes of the black chronicle that shocked Mallorcan society and awakened a wave of solidarity towards the elderly man. An event that, in addition, reopened the debate on legitimate self-defense in Spain. “God squeezes but does not suffocate, although it is suffocating me a little,” he acknowledged in a letter written in his own handwriting in response to the expressions of support received from prominent personalities and anonymous people.