“He would throw me out of the apartment or put me in bed and rape me”
"I never laid a hand on my wife."
"He threw me from the terrace and hit me with a baseball bat-type stick... then he dragged me by the legs and shot me in the belly with a pellet gun."
"Raquel couldn't stand up, she wasn't in good condition and I took her downstairs so she could vomit and I put her back in bed... she was taking anti-anxiety pills and sleeping pills and she had drunk a lot of beer during dinner."
Who tells the truth? That will have to be determined by the popular court appointed in the trial that started in the León Court against a former councilor of the Ponferrada City Council, Pedro Muñoz, accused of throwing his wife, Raquel, prostrate in a wheelchair from the balcony. the injuries from that fall. It happened on May 27, 2020.
Pedro Muñoz, for whom the prosecutor is asking for a sentence of 18 years and 9 months in prison, denies everything. With an argument, yes, something strange: “My wife drank a lot of beer,” he repeated yesterday. Raquel, for her part, could not have been more graphic and concise in her account of the events.
A heartbreaking statement that the woman, even though she is confined to a wheelchair due to the alleged abuse, has been able to narrate. Other victims of sexist violence (this year there are already 55) will never be able to tell the hell they experienced before being murdered by their partners or ex-partners.
"He would put on boxing gloves and hit me in the stomach and when he knew I was on my period he would hit me on my breasts because he knows that they hurt more at that stage. He also loved hitting me on the jaw because it is a sensitive area."
And Raquel's story continues: "At home everything was threats, coercion and brutality... he took my things and put them in garbage bags and threw me out of the apartment or put me in bed and raped me... he forbade me from going to the gym." , go to the physiotherapist, see my friends, meet my family. "He forbade me everything."
Raquel declared behind a screen. She is still very scared by the hell she experienced. Sitting in her wheelchair, she was much more concise in this statement - which is the definitive one - than in previous police interrogations. She said that her husband at the time threw her off the balcony. She assured that in that fall she did not suffer any blows to the head. The serious injuries suffered to her skull are from a second assault.
When I was lying on the ground, Pedro appeared: “He came out with a baseball bat-type stick and asked me if I was still alive, he took my pulse and said bitch, you son of a bitch, you're still alive.” Immediately afterwards, Raquel added, she hit me in the head with the bat on my arms, legs and ribs. Then she shot him with a pellet gun in her belly.
The popular jury that will have to deliver a verdict in this trial that will last all this week, did not miss a detail of Raquel's story. The attacks suffered in the family home were, the woman claims, almost daily. “Grabbing my neck with my right hand was something mathematical,” she declared.
“He forced me to have sex in every way.” And why did she start that marriage relationship with Pedro? “We got married so we could have money for the election campaign.” That was the reason for the wedding, the woman reveals. “All guests had to pay their gift into a party account to finance the campaign. She proposed it to me and I, asshole, fell into the trap and accepted.”
Very soon he realized the serious mistake. "When I left home I always came back out of fear, because he kept calling me and threatening me that he was going to kill my family and that I would no longer be able to work in Ponferrada because he was the one in charge. It was all threats, coercion and brutality ".
But that toxic relationship lasted for years. Raquel can't explain now why she didn't cut it off sooner. "I've been working on this my whole life (she's a lawyer) and I never thought it could happen to me. He's a snake charmer and he caught me at a vulnerable moment. He gave me power and I fell like an idiot. I ran into a dead end." exit".
It is part of a WhatsApp message sent by Raquel to her daughter on October 29, 2016. It was still 4 years before Pedro allegedly threw her off the balcony.
Pedro Muñoz, former councilor of the Coalition for Bierzo (CB) in the Ponferrada City Council, maintains that nothing happened as his wife now tells it. In his statement he stated that he found her wife lying on the ground with a severe blow to the head. “There was a lot of blood, a dog was licking it on the slate floor,” he said.
The man went even further by claiming that he, a nurse, tried to save Raquel. "I saw that she was not moving her arms or legs well, so I tried to hold her by her hip to protect her spine, I looked for a cushion and placed her on her side to call 112," he added.
So much attention - if it is proven that he did try to save her life after allegedly throwing her off the balcony, that could be a mitigating factor - however, it clashes with some conversations heard in this first session of the trial.
In a recording played in the room, Pedro is heard: “I'll kill you, daughter of a bitch, I'll kill you. Esp do you want me to kill you? What have I done to you, tell me, tell me. She keeps screaming, screams, screams, screams, screams, screams more bitch, bully. "And Raquel responds: "Kill me." It is one of the countless fights between the couple years before the tragic end that this trial has led to.
