The Madrid Provincial Court sentenced Jesús Pradalesfourteen years in prison for the intentional homicide of Juana Canalwhom he killed in the early hours of February 23, 2003 in an apartment in Ciudad Lineal during an argument.
This is indicated by a sentence, to which Europa Press had access, in which the confessed murderer is punished as the perpetrator responsible for a crime of homicide, with the aggravating circumstance of kinship. The convicted person must compensate the son of the deceased to the tune of 118,000 euros, and each one of his brothers for an amount of 22,000 euros. The sentence comes after a popular jury found Jesús guilty of the intentional homicide of his then partner on September 26 and ruled out that it was an accidental death.
The members of the jury thus supported the thesis of the prosecutor and the lawyer of SOS Desaparecidos, Juan Manuel Medina, who maintained that the deceased had not died accidentally after the accused pushed her away with his arm to prevent him from attacking him. The prosecutor and the lawyer of the private prosecution They requested a sentence of fifteen years in prison for a crime of intentional homicide with the aggravating circumstance of kinship, while the defense requested acquittal because it was an accidental death.
In the judgment, the court emphasizes that “it is necessary to take into account the seriousness of the damage suffered by the members of the family, linked to the experience of the sudden loss of a mother and a sister, the trial having proven that the son who lived with her “he had to leave the house because he could not pay the rent, and he even died without having news of what had happened to his mother”.
The magistrates refuse to consider a mitigating circumstance of confession, since “the accused in no way fulfills any of the required conditions, since he himself is He never went before the authority to express what he had done, and it is only when he is arrested and faced with the overwhelming evidence found concerning the remains of the person who had been his romantic partner, that he gives a version of what happened. passed, grateful only after dismembering the Juana canal.
accidental death
The accused claimed at trial that his partner for five months died accidentally in the apartment they shared in Ciudad Lineal in the early hours of February 23, 2003, when he hit the ground after pushing her with his arm to prevent her from hitting him with her fists. According to her account, that night Juana was more aggressive than usual because she was under the influence of alcohol.
In his final statement, the prosecutor stressed that Juana’s death was not “accidental”, but rather the “result of an aggressive action in which Jesus assumed the risk” of this result. “In 26 hours he dismembers her, which is not easy, travels 170 kilometers, digs two holes, buries the skeletal remains, returns and leaves the note to Sergio, Juana’s eldest son, in which he writes that her mother took some pills and it went away,” he explained.
