"They have turned their backs on me so many times that I feel that there is no way out for me," admits Loredana, a 24-year-old victim of sexist violence. The Spanish Government has rejected his pardon to a sentence of two years and nine months in prison for a crime of injury to his ex-partner, whom he had previously denounced for gender violence and against whom a restraining order weighed. "I thought it would be favorable, but when my lawyer told me that they had rejected the pardon, the world fell on top of me," explains the young woman, who received the news last Tuesday.
The events for which she is being sentenced took place on September 8, 2017, around half past four in the morning, in Madrid. That night, Loredana met her ex-partner, whom she had reported for sexist violence just six days ago, after he beat her up in her own home. At the time, the aggressor had a 500-metre stay-away order.
The young woman explains that in that meeting she asked for forgiveness and assured her that she would change. Loredana reprimanded her for her lies and, at that moment, her ex-partner kicked her hard and knocked her to the ground. With the intention of defending himself, he picked up a piece of glass that was on the ground to "warn him to get off of him". With the force, Loredana ended up causing a two-centimeter cut on her cheek, very close to her eye.
A patrol that was in the area arrested them. Both went to a speedy trial in which neither testified. Her ex reported her for the cut, but both agreed a few days later to withdraw their respective reports to "turn the page". She managed to withdraw it, but he did not, and legal proceedings began.
The head of criminal court 2 in Móstoles acquitted the man – aged 21 – because he considered that it was not proven that he assaulted Loredana – aged 19 – nor that he knew that he had a restraining order in force on her issued five days before
Jacobo Teijelo, the young woman's lawyer, requested her pardon and managed to temporarily suspend the sentence until the Council of Ministers decided on the measure of clemency. In addition, the magistrate who suspended his entry into prison in November 2021 considered that "the status of a victim of gender violence" had not been taken into account in the sentence.
"I was very surprised that they didn't grant us a pardon", says the lawyer to this newspaper, who describes the sentence as "serious and disproportionate", and more so considering that "the execution judge stated that he gave support for the pardon because the gender approach had not been taken into account”.
After two months of the events, Loredana reported the subject again for a crime of threats to her friend and her. "You are bitches. I will kill you, I don't mind going to jail for both of them", he wrote to them. This time, the aggressor was sentenced in June 2018 to 11 months in prison and a ban on approaching young women. Later, he was again convicted of gender violence in February 2021 for two crimes of injury to another ex-partner.
However, these antecedents, the restraining order or the conviction in November did not seem like enough evidence for the judge, nor have they been for the Ministry of Justice. "We have a sentence practically comparable to an attempted murder, when it is a small cut by a person who is defending himself", assures Teijelo.
Loredana confesses that she has never come to believe that she is guilty and wonders what would have happened if she had not acted as she did: "Perhaps she would be dead now". The only thing left is to re-submit a request for pardon in which his status as a victim and the antecedents of his ex are taken into consideration. If they reject him again, Loredana will go to prison, while the young man convicted of sexist violence – even on two occasions – will be free.
