The Supreme Court has sentenced to the United States Deputy and former Secretary of Organization of Training Alberto Rodríguez for a crime of attack on agents of authority to a month and a half of prison, which replace a fine of 540 euros.
The ruling, adopted by five votes to two, agrees that the sentence is notified to the Central Electoral Board “to the appropriate effects”.
The consequence of the final sentence will be, according to legal sources, that Rodríguez should leave the seat of him in Congress.
From the United States we can question that this should be thus, highlighting that the prison would involve that disqualification to continue in the seat has been replaced by a fine.
The Criminal Room absolves Rodriguez of the slight crime of injuries by which he was accused, as a result of the decriminalization of the faults in 2015, although he will have to pay 50 euros as compensation of civil liability to the policeman who, according to the proven facts,
He proposed a kick in a demonstration in 2014 at the Laguna (Tenerife).
According to the Supreme, the judgment considers proven that on January 25, 2014, in the locality of La Laguna, on the occasion of the reopening of the Cathedral, different acts were organized to those who were expected to attend the then Minister of Education and
Culture, José Ignacio Wert.
The police organized a device in the vicinity by having aware that a manifestation under the slogan “rejection of Lomce” had been convened.
Some 500 people “began to proffer cries and insults against the agents and against the aforementioned minister. […] At a given time, the congregates began to attack against the fence, throwing the fences against the agents, as well as diverse objects as
Stones, bottles of water and others, “says the sentence, of which the Magistrate Miguel Colmenenero has been speaker.
During those clashes “the accused Alberto Rodríguez Rodríguez […] gave a kicking in the knee to the Agent of the Police CN No. 92,025, which, duly uniformed, was fulfilling the functions of his position as a member of the aforementioned police unit,
which, as a result of that, suffered a contusion of which he cured in a day without impediment to his usual activities. ”
The court chaired by Manuel Marchena has particularly valued the police statement, who “in his statements did not express any doubt that the defendant was the one who gave him, voluntarily, a kick on his left knee, in the course of the incidents they had
place”.
He adds that “such a statement appears corroborated by the fact of having immediately attended after the events to receive medical assistance and by the early police identification of the accused as an author of the facts. The credibility of the witness is also supported by persistence in the maintained version
From the beginning and by the absence of any kind of animadversion against the accused. ”
Rodríguez held in the trial that it was a regular practice of the police falsely involve people who had highlighted in other manifestations.
The magistrates believe that nothing is given that endorses that thesis and remember that the agent declared that he knew the accused of other manifestations in which he had maintained a normal behavior.
“So, on the date of the facts, in the opinion of the witness, the defendant was not a person meaning by the particularly active or violent attitude of him in the demonstrations; and, in addition, he lacked political relevance.”
Regarding what the accused also argued that the exercise of the right of assembly and demonstration was being questioned, the Chamber responds that “numerous people used that right on that occasion and only the arrest of those who were imputed
violent acts”.
“Violence is not inherent in the exercise of meeting and demonstration rights. The accusation sustained in this cause has nothing to do with the exercise of these fundamental rights, but with the use of violence, in the course of their exercise, against the
Authority agents who are in the fulfillment of their functions, “he adds.
The judgment considers that all the elements of the crime concur.
“No doubt exists that the injured agent was uniformed and in the exercise of the functions of his position. He has not been questioned that the defendant adequately knew that circumstance, on the other hand, no other reasons for
The aggression that those related to the fulfillment of the public functions that the police agent corresponded at that time. […] The act of providing a kick in the knee constitutes not only an act of acomestication, but a clear aggression “.
As for the concrete penalty to impose, the judgment explains that the prosecution proposed to lower it to a degree when applying the mitigation of undue delay.
The Supreme estimates that the rebate must be greater, of two degrees, by not being justified that the cause has been delayed seven years without being a complex matter.
The sentence includes a particular discrepant vote of two of the seven magistrates, Susana Polo and Leopold Puente.
They argue that the sentence must have been absolute, since the evidence practiced in the trial is “very far” of being sufficient to enervate the right to the presumption of innocence.
They indicate that the sentence is based as a unique evidence in the testimony provided by the assault police, who identified its aggressor in the trial, but did not illustrate the Court on the circumstances in which it occurred.
“This extreme parking of the story is, in our opinion very relevant, to the extent that evil can be assessed the reliability in the identification of the aggressor, when we do not even know if the agent arranged some time to repair in his appearance (seeing him,
For example, reaching from the front) or if the events discussed in an inadequate way for such recognition. ”
They affirm that in this case it is about determining whether it can be considered proven that Alberto Rodríguez was the person who proposed that agent a kick on the left knee.
“The agent is as follows. And the defendant denies it. It is possible that it was happening. We are not in a position to discard it. But there are also other multiple possibilities, equal to or looked likely. It is plausible, for example, that the agent may have been wrong in
The identification. We do not know the exact form, we have already said, in which aggression could have been produced, “the magistrates underlined in his vote.
From we can have been reported this Monday what the training considers a persecution of the former organization secretary.
Rodríguez himself has considered that, with this decision, “the right to manifestation is increasingly tiny and the discredit of Spanish justice, increasingly,” and has announced that he is willing to reach Strasbourg in his legal battle: ”
See you at the TED, “he has drew through a message on social networks.
In this sense, United Sources can doubt that Rodríguez should be disabled in a total way.
Thus, they believe that, by replacing the prison for a fine, “absolute disabling can not be implied, sanction that has not been imposed by the Supreme Court.”
In addition, criticism of justice have reached from the Council of Ministers.
IONE BEARRA, HEALTH OF SOCIAL RIGHTS AND GENERAL SECRETARY OF CAN, HAS TILDED “Terrible” the “criminalization” suffering from Rodríguez.
“Seeks to send us a message,” she has considered her: “Do not get involved in politics.”
Rodríguez has also received the support of the United Left Consumer Minister and Leader, Alberto Garzón, who, harshly, has called the justice of “reactionary force” and has assured that this sentence can not “stain” “decency, dignity
and commitment “of former number three of we can.
From the dwelling ranks, which on Thursday starts its one of autumn – a day with which to relaunch the party agenda -, supporting Rodríguez is unanimous.
The parliamentary spokesman for the training, Pablo Echenique, has defined the Spanish justice of “corrupt” and being “at the service of power” after having condemned Rodríguez without “no evidence”, at the same time he considers “innocent” to
Juan Carlos I with “Abundant evidence that he disappointed millions.”
“It’s scary,” Echenique said, shortly before claiming through social networks to the European Commission that “a member of Parliament has been condemned without any evidence.”
