The Supreme Court has confirmed the sentence of 18 years in prison for the man who shot dead a businessman in Lloret de Mar (Girona) on September 13, 2012.
The ruling dismissed the defense appeal that wanted to annul a testimony and argued that there was insufficient evidence.
The high court thus reaffirms the ruling of the Girona Court which, following the verdict of the popular jury, sentenced Zhirayr Abrahamyan for murder and illegal possession of weapons.
According to the sentence, the defendant and the victim were left in a field near the old Can Barnés school to resolve a conflict they had. Once there, treacherously, the defendant fired five shots at the victim, who had no chance to defend himself.
The third section of the Girona Court judged the defendant in February 2022 because after perpetrating the crime he fled Lloret de Mar and they located and arrested him in Valencia in April 2017. The popular jury found him guilty of a crime of murder and a crime of illegal possession of weapons and the magistrate-president of the court, Juan Mora, imposed 18 years in prison.
The defendant's defense filed an appeal in the TSJC, which dismissed him, alleging that there was a "sum of proven elements" that led to a "unequivocal and unequivocal final logical conclusion": that Abrahamyan was the author of the facts.
The defendant's lawyer appealed the resolution again, this time in the Supreme Court. The sentence discards one by one the arguments of the defense, who wanted to annul the statement of a witness who did not appear at the trial and whose statement was read. In addition, he also argued that the circumstantial evidence was not enough to support a conviction.
The Supreme rejects it. In relation to the witness, the sentence states that, even without this witness, the popular jury had two other witnesses who gave the same information, explaining that the accused and the victim had had a previous conflict and that they had arranged to meet that night.
The sentence also includes up to five pieces of evidence, including witnesses, telephones and video surveillance cameras, that support the sentence, adding that the jury and the jury did not consider the exculpatory versions of the defendant "credible" who gave different explanations throughout the procedure, such as that he had dined with a lover and he did not want his wife to know it or that he had left Lloret because he was afraid of the Russian mafia.
The Supreme Court collects that to these indications are added "the previous problems" between the two men because the defendant punched the victim two months before, on July 17, 2012: "These indications reinforce those indicated in the first place, that are those taken into consideration by the jury, which are highly convective and constitute an exercise in rationality that cannot be accused of unconstitutionality".
The people's court, and the judgment of the High Court, concluded that between 7:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on September 13, 2012, the defendant and the victim were left in a field near the old Can Barnés school in Lloret de Mar. The defendant was armed with a pistol and, as soon as he met the victim, he fired a first shot at him through the passenger door of the businessman's car.
He then walked around the vehicle and, as the victim tried to flee, fired two more shots. When the businessman was already on the ground, he finished him off by firing two more shots into his head. According to the sentence, the victim could not defend himself in any way "because he did not carry any weapon; because of how fast, unexpected and by surprise the attack was and because he was already wounded on the ground from the shots received when he started it up. the last".
The Court imposed 17 years in prison for the murder and 1 year in prison for the illegal possession of weapons. The Supreme Court imposes the procedural costs of the appeal in the defense.
