The Supreme Court (TS) has refused to increase the prison sentence of a convicted person who murdered and beheaded a man in Huelva in 2020 and then walked the head through the street, understanding that it has not been proven that he exhibited it with the intention of let the family see her.
The magistrates have rejected the appeal presented by the family members - who claimed that the crime against moral integrity should also be imposed - and have concluded that the pertinent thing is to maintain the sentence of 21 years and 5 months in prison set by the Provincial Court of Huelva for the crimes of murder and desecration of a corpse.
In the ruling, the Criminal Chamber insists that "it is not declared proven that the display of the victim's head was to the next of kin, so that they, regardless of the moral damage they have suffered due to the dramatic events that occurred, They did not suffer that direct degradation" that the crime against moral integrity requires.
The relatives went to the high court to ask it to correct the resolution of the Provincial Court of Huelva and add this crime to that of murder and desecration of a corpse. The magistrates, however, indicate that there is no evidence of the convicted person's intention to morally attack the dignity of the family members, "whom it is not even certain that he knew or treated, and in front of whom he did not engage in the behavior described."
"If there was an intention to morally degrade, it would have been the victim, and the damage to his family members is a reflection," they state, adding that if the thesis of the private accusation is correct, "there would be no case in which a crime was committed." of desecration of a corpse, the crime against the moral integrity of the relatives of the deceased was not also being committed".
In the opinion of the Supreme Court, therefore, there is not a humiliation against the family members, but rather the desecration of the corpse with the consequent moral damage for the family members, which was already taken into account when setting the compensation.
"The fact of cutting the throat of the corpse and exposing its head to different people constitutes the crime of desecration of corpses for which he has already been convicted, and not the one for which he is now being sued, since it is not proven that this was the intention of the accused. when carrying out such acts, especially if, as is evident, at no time were these acts perpetrated in the presence of the appellant's family members, who do not even know that he knew them," he summarizes, to reject the appellants' request.
And at the same time, the high court rejects a second request from the victim's relatives, that of applying the aggravating circumstance of abuse of trust, given the friendly relationship that existed between the victim and the convicted person.
For the family members, the aggravating circumstance of abuse of trust was compatible with that of treachery, which was applied, but the magistrates explained that in this case the first cannot be taken into account "as it responds to a greater ease of commission that is implicit in that , and the appreciation of both would mean punishing twice the aggressor's use of the absence of a defensive reaction based on a relationship of trust that inhibits suspicion in the face of possible aggression."
The Supreme Court specifies that joint application may be "unfeasible", since sometimes the distinction between the two is "complicated": "On many occasions the abuse of trust is absorbed into treachery because, as the aphorism says, 'he who trusts does not defend'".
That is why they choose not to appreciate both circumstances at the same time, remembering that the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia confirmed that decision, ruling out adding to the treachery the generic aggravating circumstance of abuse of trust "since this is not possible in the modality surprising or unexpected, since the abuse of trust could only be a factor that contributes to the helplessness of the victim due to the unexpectedness of the attack.
Before walking down the street with the victim's decapitated head, the convicted man went to the victim's home and, while the deceased was in the kitchen crouched in front of the refrigerator, from behind him and with the intention of causing his death, "he grabbed with both hands a metal skeleton of a heater weighing approximately 1.1 kilo that was on the kitchen floor, he raised it and hit him on the head at least twice", dying practically immediately, according to the sentence. .
