It is not easy to piece together all the pieces of what happened that early morning of July 3, 2021 during which Samuel Luiz, a young nurse who left to party in La Coruña without mingling with anyone, suffered a savage collective attack that ended his life. Neither witnesses nor security camera videos seem to be enough to sort out all the details. But the combination of testimonies and images, with the essential interpretation of these by the police, dismantled the alibis of several of the people investigated who shied away from responsibility for the crime.
The first sessions of the trial against the five defendants who risk sentences of 22 and 27 years in prison for the assassination of Samuel Luiz, devoted mainly to hearing witnesses to the crime, left many certainties. No one doubts that Diego Montaña ran onto the promenade bench to attack Samuel Luiz after thinking that he and his friend Lina were recording him with their cell phone when in reality they were making a video call. And it was also confirmed, after hearing several witnesses, and even hearing one of the accused, that before the attack, he had threatened to kill him and had thrown homophobic insults at him.
Even Diego Montaña’s defense does not question the fact that this is how the attack began, which in a few seconds became massive. But his lawyer, Manuel Salgado, tries to save him with a thesis that could be summed up in three points: that Diego Montaña was completely drunk, that it was not his blows that killed Samuel and that he did not attack him because of his sexual condition. , but rather that He was an arbitrary victim of his anger.
But this exculpatory version is now weakening, having already passed the halfway point of the trial which has been taking place for a month before a popular court at the Provincial Court of La Coruña. Regarding the discrimination against the victim’s sexual orientation, which for Diego Montaña could increase his sentence for the crime up to 25 years in prison, some witnesses revealed a later compromising conversation: when his then girlfriend, the accused Catherine Silva, blamed him for what he did, Diego Montaña replied: “But he was a fucking faggot.”
The alleged degree of extreme alcohol intoxication of Diego Montaña, which his lawyer insists on, was also called into question during the last hearing: a video captured by a traffic camera was broadcast in which, despite its low quality, we can see how the accused is able to nimbly jump over the steps of the promenade bench to attack Samuel.
A camera captured Diego Montaña laughing in the street shortly after the savage attack on Samuel Luiz.
Alejandro Freire, alias “Llumba”, took a few seconds to join the attack launched by his friend. Several witnesses testified at the trial that it was Llumba who threw Samuel to the ground, grabbing him by the neck from behind – they both fell. His lawyer, David Freire, insists every time he has the opportunity on the need to clearly define who is doing what in the attack: throwing the victim is not the same thing as punching or punching him. foot to the face. The videos show, however, according to the police’s interpretation, that in addition to throwing Samuel Luiz to the ground, Llumba joined the attack to hit him. Llumba, who barely looks up from the ground during the trial, faces 22 years in prison.
Enhanced footage from a traffic camera in the area complements witness statements and adds credibility
The evidence produced in the plenary session also focuses on Kaio Amaral, for whom the charges require the highest sentence, 27 years in prison, because the murder is added to the theft – with force – of Samuel’s cell phone. At the start of the trial, witnesses pointed determinedly at Diego Montaña and, to a lesser extent, Llumba, but the name Kaio Amaral was slow to emerge. Until, during one of the sessions, a witness pointed it out without hesitation: Kaio Amaral ran towards the heart of the attack and kicked at least once. And in the videos broadcast during the last session, in fact, this accused was seen running and making the gesture of kicking the victim. Llumba previously told a friend that Kaio Amaral had kicked Samuel the day after the crime in an Instagram conversation revealed by ABC.
Poor quality videos
However, it is also true that neither traffic camera footage nor the aforementioned witness can prove one hundred percent that these kicks ended up hitting Samuel Luiz’s body. That’s why his Kaio Amal lawyer, Ramón Sierra, is trying hard to make sure the court doesn’t take him for granted. Although researchers – and logic – suggest that this was the case. In any case, a clarification is necessary: the poor quality of the video from the Plaza de Portugal camera, which is the one that captures the entire sequence, as well as the fact that sometimes street lamps and trees cover the attack, it is difficult to identify the silhouettes of the participants in the lynching.
Samuel and his friend Lina (walking together) on the promenade seconds before the attack
This is why the interpretation of the images taken by the police is essential in the trial. In other words, from the clothes the accused wore that day – which they can see, for example, on the cameras of the Andén pub, where almost everyone went that evening – the investigators are able to identify them as closely as possible. bad traffic camera footage. “It’s just that it took many hours to look at the images, the clothes, the physical constitution of the accused, to look for the details,” replied a police officer when the defense asked him how he could identify them with such blurry images: “When you see so many frames, you get used to it.” in their way of walking, of acting, each has their own particularity.
For these reasons, paying particular attention to the videos, the investigators reaffirmed during the last sessions of the trial that the five investigators who sit in the dock for the crime of Samuel Luiz – two others, who were minors at the time and already convicted of murder in a marginal process – remain almost at all times at the “heart” of the aggression and, in one way or another, participate in it.
The police are targeting Diego Montaña, Llumba and Kaio Amal, that is to say the three young people who remained in preventive detention a few days after the crime. But they also name Alejandro Míguez and Catherine Silva, the two accused of the murder, who are on provisional release. Alejandro Míguez maintains that he only intervened in the tumult to separate himself, and it is true that no one saw him hit, as his lawyer, Manuel Ferreiro, insists. But at one point, Alejandro Freire made a remark to a witness that I was capable of compromising: he said he couldn’t do anything because “a black man” stopped him. . He was referring to one of the two Senegalese who tried to prevent the lynching of the victim.
No one saw Catherine Silva attack Samuel Luiz, but the accusations require the same sentence for her as for her ex: 25 years in prison. His role, in the eyes of the prosecutor, was to try to prevent Lina, Samuel’s friend, from being able to help him while Diego Montaña attacked him. They attribute the same aggravating circumstance to him as to his ex-partner because they believe that he shared the same animosity towards gays. An officer confirmed in recent sessions that she deleted almost all of the content on her cell phone after the crime.
The police officers who analyzed the camera images recognized that at no time was Catherine Silva seen attacking Samuel Luiz, but they confirmed that she did not stop “entering and leaving ” from the “core” of the attack. And officers also claim she held Diego Montaña and Llumba’s jackets while they beat her. His lawyer, Luciano Prado, insists his client tried to stop the attack.
