After a long month of trial, the People’s Court has remained locked since Monday, in custody, deliberating on the responsibility of the five accused for the savage beatings which ended the life of Samuel Luiz in the early hours of July 3, 2021. The subject of the verdict is made up of around a hundred questions, which include around fifty facts that the nine members of the jury must decide whether they are proven or not. But in reality, the fate of the five people investigated for a crime that shook all of Spain that summer This will be played out on a few issues. This is the real battle defenses to free their clients from prison sentences exceeding two decades in prison.
As ABC learned, the first block of the subject of the verdict is common to the five indicted. These are questions linked above all to two aspects: the cause of Samuel Luiz’s death, written in technical language, in accordance with the conclusions of the autopsy; and another series of questions regarding the situation of the victim’s family, essential in determining the compensation to be received -civil liability- for the violent death of his son. The sources consulted by this newspaper assume that these first questions will be proven unanimously.
After this joint blockage, the subject of the verdict that the people’s court is considering these days includes specific questions about the participation of each of the defendants. There are roughly fifteen questions per person and they have a similar structure for everyone: you start asking, in each case, how they participated in the attack.
Diego Montaña began the attack on Samuel Luiz on the A Coruña seafront near Riazor when he wrongly believed the victim and a friend were recording him with their phones. With him was Catherine Silva, his partner at the time. Alejandro Freire, alias “Llumba,” soon joined the lynching. Then, in different phases, Kaio Amaral, Alejandro Míguez and two other young people appeared who had already been tried and convicted in another separate trial because they were minors at the time. The jury is questioned about this entry on the scene of each defendant.
And it is in this particular block of each accused that the real battle of defenses takes place, where lawyers with questions who fought to incorporate them into the verdict They are looking for a way out for their clients. In the case of Kaio Amaral and Alejandro Míguez, who deny even touching the victim, the questions go in this direction: if there is evidence to conclude that they attacked Samuel.
For Diego Montaña and Llumba, war is different. Both admitted to participating in the attack in some way, but they limited their role to the early stages of the lynching. In Montaña’s case, he only hit him at the beginning, and in Llumba’s, alleging that the only thing he did was throw Samuel to the ground by grabbing his neck from behind. For both, the jury’s answer to the question of whether they intended to kill will be key.
Murder and manslaughter
Both the prosecutor’s office and the popular and participatory accusations accuse the five of the crime of murder with treason and cruelty. This is why the subject of the verdict refers to it. We do not ask juries, with these words, if there was treason and cruelty, but they must answer a series of facts so that, based on this criterion, the president of the court, Elena Fernanda Pastor Novo, must translate her judgment into legal language. There would be a difference between homicide and murder.
The way in which the jurors position themselves in the deadlock relating to aggravating and mitigating circumstances will also be important. Montaña and Llumba assured that they were completely drunk at the time of the events, which could slightly reduce the sentence if they were found guilty. In Llumba’s case, his lawyer also mentioned possible psychological disorders.
It must be remembered that for To consider a proven fact, the affirmative vote of seven of the nine members of the jury is required. For this not to be proven, five votes are enough. The five accused of the murder of Samuel Luiz face sentences ranging from 22 to 27 years in prison.
