The man convicted of the murder with treachery and sexual assault of a nine-year-old boy in the Rioja town of Lardero in 2021, Francisco Javier Almeida, has filed an appeal in the Superior Court of Justice (TSJ) of La Rioja against the sentence of the Provincial Court, which determined the revisable permanent prison sentence and 15 years in jail.
The Superior Court of Justice of La Rioja has indicated this Wednesday, in a note, that the appeal will be heard by its Civil and Criminal Chamber.
Almeida, who had been on probation since April 2020, was sentenced to permanent reviewable prison for the treacherous murder of the boy Álex, on October 28, 2021, whom he also sexually assaulted, for which he must serve 15 years in prison.
On March 30, the jury that tried Almeida found him guilty of both crimes and of exercising “extreme violence” on Álex, who was unable to defend himself.
The subsequent sentence of the Provincial Court of La Rioja, known on April 18, highlighted that the injuries found in the minor evidenced “the use of special brutality”; and it was found that Almeida had “direct intent to kill” to hide the sexual assault.
Álex, while playing disguised in a park in Lardero, was tricked by the condemned man into going to his house, where he attacked him and caused him to die by suffocation, after which he went out onto the stairs with the lifeless child in his arms and he was surprised by a neighbor and by police officers who were looking for the minor.
Almeida’s criminal record includes that he sexually assaulted a minor in 1993 in Logroño, for which he was sentenced to 7 years in prison; and, in 1998, he also murdered and sexually assaulted a real estate agent in the capital of La Rioja, for which his sentence amounted to 30 years in prison.
The decision of the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the TSJ of La Rioja may be appealed before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court.
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