It was one of the most anticipated statements of the trial. After a dozen hearings during which mainly witnesses appeared, this Wednesday, it was the investigators who began trying to shed light on the crime of Samuel Luiz. The first to do so was the head of the investigation, who revealed how they managed to identify, one by one, those allegedly responsible for the death of the young nurse in the early hours of July 3, 2021 in A Coruña . It was, as this police command defined yesterday, a “collective, inhuman and atrocious” crime.
Chance wanted this police investigator on duty this weekend. He was quickly alerted to the violent death of a young man after a beating in a bar. And they set off. “We activated the entire investigation team, which was formed in the hours that followed,” he said at the request of the prosecutor. They went to the crime scene, around the Riazor promenade. And on the ground, they began to identify some witnesses, while the forensic police carried out the visual inspection. By then, they have already located a key witness: Lina, the friend who was with Samuel at the time of the lynching, who provides the first details and marks the “journey” and background data of the fatal beating.
Between Saturday and Monday, they heard 15 witnesses. These are the wickers with which the investigation began, to which another important element was added from the first moments: the recordings of a traffic camera from the immediate Plaza de Portugal. We see the tumult that ended Samuel’s life. Unfortunately, it was an old camera and its resolution was not the best. The silhouettes could be made out, but this was not enough to identify the people involved.
With these assets, they set out to interview witnesses about the clothing worn by everyone present, most of them young people out partying on what was the first weekend the nightlife venues were open during the pandemic. They wanted to compare their clothes with those of the silhouettes appearing in the bad traffic camera images. Some witnesses provided “participant data, names, descriptions or Instagram nicknames.” recalled the head of the investigation during the popular trial held at the Provincial Court of La Coruña. With these pieces, the agents “assembled the puzzle”.
One of the first to testify, especially number 13, was Kaio Amaral, one of the five alleged perpetrators of the crime who now sits in the dock. He quickly presented himself at the police station saying he wanted to “collaborate”. “He gave us data that seems logical to us,” admitted this police commander. Kaio identified Diego Montaña and Alejandro Freire, alias “Llumba”, as the attackers of Samuel Luiz, whom neither of them knew at all. It was the statements of Kaio and those of his girlfriend at the time which gave the key to arresting Llumba, Montaña and Catherine Silva, then companion of the latter, who is not accused of having hit Samuel but of trying to stop him from helping him. him.
Lies of the accused
But these testimonies were taken “with great caution”, explained this police chief, because they were aware that someone could lie or hide information to try to protect themselves. They think it was Kaio’s case: “He lied to us, he told us that he only tried to separate his friends.” They found out by questioning Óscar, a friend, who “implicated Kaio by saying he had kicked at least one.” That’s not the only thing Kaio wasn’t telling the truth about: he also said that that night he was dressed in clothes he wasn’t really wearing. When they found out what clothes he was wearing, they looked at the traffic camera again – now with clearer images after being processed – and saw that “he gets up, runs at high speed and lifts his left leg to hit”. And that “coincides with what Oscar testified.” His testimony precipitated Kaio’s arrest.
Investigators collected footage from more security cameras; among others, those of the Andén pub, where most of the accused were that night, and those of a vending machine store, near where Samuel Luiz collapsed. “The following months “We are dedicated to viewing these images again and again to certify who is who,” said the policeman. And fifty testimonies compared them.
These investigations led to the arrest of Alejandro Míguez, the fifth defendant, at the end of September. They discovered he had lied when, two months earlier, as a witness, he had “distanced himself from the action”. “We managed to position him, many images were seen and we were able to capture him as soon as he got up, “We see him running after Kaio and entering the assault group, where at one point he is thrown.” Another witness said Míguez told him shortly afterward that he couldn’t “do anything because a black man grabbed him.” He was referring to one of the Senegalese who tried to save Samuel from the attack that cost him his life.
