Jury unanimously finds 'prison vigilante' guilty

There have been no surprises.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
25 May 2023 Thursday 10:56
36 Reads
Jury unanimously finds 'prison vigilante' guilty

There have been no surprises. The popular jury has unanimously found guilty the 'prison vigilante', Luís García de Santiago, who in October 2020 justified having stabbed another prisoner to death "because he was a child rapist." The deceased was serving a sentence for prostitution of minors. Taking into account that confession as well as the images captured by the security cameras, the nine members of the people's court have not harbored any doubt and have ruled García de Santiago guilty by an absolute majority. They have considered it proven that the defendant caught the victim off guard, whom he surprised from behind and repeatedly stabbed him in vital areas until he ended his life. The jury has picked up a phrase that the defendant said to justify his verdict. "Enemy surprised, enemy defeated."

Now it will be the magistrate who must impose the penalties that correspond to her, although surprises are not expected either. The parties, the prosecution, private prosecution and defense agreed before the last session of the trial a sentence of 24 years in prison for murder with treachery and cruelty and ten months in prison for resisting authority. García de Santiago will remain in prison for two more decades. He entered prison in 2003 for various violent assaults and robberies. Three months after leaving him, he shot his uncle to death, a crime for which he was sentenced to 18 years in prison. That is the sentence he was serving when in 2020 he murdered another prisoner in Brians 2, a 32-year-old man of Romanian nationality, convicted of prostituting a minor who, together with his wife, was captured in Romania and offered his body in various points in Spain until they were detained by the National Police in the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona.

García de Santiago always maintained that he did it "for ethics" to take revenge on rapists and sex offenders. However, during his interrogation, he slipped out that the crime was not his idea but someone else's. “It was a commission”, “a job”, he pointed out. That novel event that no one, not even his lawyer Tània Ferreras, was aware of, was a twist in the script to the point that the Prosecutor's Office has promised to continue investigating whether someone could have commissioned the crime.

The Generalitat paid 312,000 euros as civil liability to the victim's relatives by assuming that it had not guaranteed the safety of the deceased in the prison nor had it prevented the entry of the knife with which they killed him. The Government compensated the victim's mother with 72,000 euros; 20,000 euros for each of her three sisters and 180,000 for her son. The little one is in a center guarded by the Government of Aragon and the Prosecutor's Office has demanded that the preservation of that money be ensured so that it can be used when he is of legal age. In addition, compensation of 100,000 euros had also been agreed for the wife of the deceased, who was also convicted of prostitution of minors together with her husband, but who escaped from prison during a leave. In the event that she returns, the money would go to compensate the victim of the previous procedure.