trial of fatal group shootings that shocked Spain

The acts, to which ABC had access, detail the role of each. They shared the same “unity of action”, knowing that “they could cause his death” and “they accepted the consequences of their conduct”. Charged with the same crime, different roles and different tickets to jail.

Samuel was beaten “systematically, persistently and in groups, seeking to cause him unnecessary pain and suffering.” This shared responsibility explains the prosecution’s request, which varies between 22 and 27 years in prison, for an offense of murder with treachery and cruelty.

However, the details of the behavior of each of them that morning could modify the final sentence, which will be in the hands of a popular jury. To begin with, and as the debates reveal, not everyone is in the same starting situation.

Diego Montaña is, from the beginning, a nuclear actor of aggression. He is accused of starting the fight when he saw Samuel Luiz with his cell phone in his hand and thought they were focusing on him and his girlfriend. In Diego’s case, up to thirteen witnesses point to him, after receiving instructions, as an active participant throughout the crime. deadly pursuit which ended up costing the life of the nurse from La Coruña. The evidence against him is not scant.

He is the first to throw kicks And perforation on the victim, who was completely caught off guard by his reaction. In addition to attacking “very delicate anatomical parts”, there are witnesses who put death threats in his mouth – “See if I’m going to kill you, faggot!” – and who specify that two minutes from the end, he collapses on the ground! earth, He shouts to Samuel: “I’m going to stab you, you’re going to die.”

To the story of those who witnessed the attack is added that of three of his friends, who, in court, identified him as a participant. They are Kaio Amaral, his girlfriend, and Alejandro Míguez. In addition, several cameras captured him and his DNA appeared on the victim’s face. The prosecutor asks for Diego, 29, 25 years in prison. In her case, it includes the aggravating circumstance of discrimination based on sexual condition. Montaña was arrested a few days after the crime and remains in preventive detention.

Diego Montaña’s friend at the time, Catherine Silva, is another person involved in this trial, although her participation in the events is the most questionable in the eyes of a citizen’s court. The investigation leaves no doubt about his responsibility in the death, from the start of the attack, even if he had not inflicted one shot to the victim.

Katy, as she is known, was with Diego when he confronted Samuel and pushed the deceased’s friend so she couldn’t help him. Up to three witnesses indicate her as a participant, but no one saw her touch Samuel. The accusations have recordings that she be placed in the middle of the crowd and that the prosecution asks for 25 years in prison for discriminatory murder, the same sentence as for her companion.

The girl, aged 22 and from A Coruña, was arrested during the first week of the investigation, but was never imprisoned. They released her under investigation. She is expected to testify at the start of the trial on the 17th about a possible defense strategy aimed at distancing her from those who have the most votes to be convicted. Her then-boyfriend, among them.

Alejandro Freire, aka “Llumba,” 24, was also on investigators’ radar from the start. It is considered that it was he – and not Diego – who knocked down Samuel with the ‘mataleon‘. They accuse him of “joining the dynamic” of his friend to bring down the victim. He also appears a few minutes later in the 150-meter chase that the attacking group began when two young Senegalese helped Samuel to get up. And there is evidence of his presence during the final attack at the foot of the sidewalk when the nurse had already collapsed.

Six witnesses accuse him, including, once again, his friends Kaio Amaral, his girlfriend and Alejandro Míguez. His image also appears in recordings and photographic appendices. And one last test: there is DNA of this involved in some crystals who appeared next to the victim. Llumba presented himself voluntarily to the police station to give his version of events, knowing that his name was already circulating, and was arrested shortly after. He insists he didn’t hit Samuel and emphasizes his Kaio (“I saw him on the ground and I didn’t do anything, it was Kaio, a few kicks”) , as ABC exclusively revealed this Saturday when it published messages exchanged with a friend via Instagram in the days following the attack. Behind bars, his relationship with Diego was maintained, but not with Kaio, accused of having broken the pact of silence.

It was the accused who stood out the most to the rest of the suspects. Before the investigators, he confirmed the participation of Diego and Llumba. Of course, he denied his. He insists that he was at the scene of the crime, that he took Samuel’s cell phone (the prosecutor is asking for 27 years in prison for murder plus violent robbery), but he assures that he did not not contributed to death. Four witnesses locate him at the heart of lynchingin addition to theirs cameras.

Kaio was “near the scene” when he noticed the attack, and the fight having already started, he joined him while Samuel was already on the ground. The procedure expressly states that he “kicked the victim in the face and head” at a time when the deceased was “surrounded and beaten, helpless, at the mercy and will of his group of attackers and “in a clear situation of inferiority”. and helplessness.” Kaio was arrested during the first week of the investigation and is in preventive detention, where he has been involved in altercations with other detainees. They are taking him away from Diego and Llumba.

He was the last to join the team of investigators and then prosecuted for this high-profile case. It took investigators two months to arrest him, which explains why in the early stages of the proceedings, to which ABC had access, he appeared as another witness to the fight, and not as an actor. In his statement, Míguez accuses Diego and Llumba, colleagues of his group, perpetrators of the attack since its beginning.

In addition to being the last to be arrested, Míguez escaped – like Catherine – from prison and is waiting on provisional release the trial during which his responsibility will be clarified. In front of the police, Míguez also incriminated “Pompo”, one of the two minors already sentenced for this offense to three and a half years in prison in another separate legal proceeding.

Against him there are photographic annexes which place him on the premisesand this they allowed to confirm, as well as a witness to the attack, who hit Samuel and kicked him, fearing that he would not be able to escape the blows. Like Katy, Alejandro Míguez should declare at the start of the plenary session, an approach to mark, in the eyes of the members of the jury, a distance from those who were his friends.

Although it is a resolved and closed process, the names of the two minors found guilty of the death of Samuel Luiz will be revealed during the month of trial. The two young people, now of agewere identified by various witnesses who confirmed their active involvement in the massive aggression.

As this is a juvenile conviction, it is not possible to know the degree of participation in the lynching, although it has been proven that both are co-perpetrators of the crime.

The list of people who will appear at the trial which will begin next week, and to which this newspaper has had access, includes the statements of the two convicted minors, as witnesses to the event, for October 24. Through their presence, they will try to shed light on six minutes of violence unleashed that the group of friends unleashed on Samuel.

In total, they should declare in plenary more than forty people that that morning, they witnessed more or less closely the torture and the end of a victim who, three years later, awaits justice.