Harassment and injuries. These are the two crimes for which photojournalist Jordi Martín will sit in the dock at the request of Clara Chía, the romantic partner of ex-footballer Gerard Piqué, if she maintains the charges for which she reported him to the Mossos d’Esquadra on May 10 because of the persecution to which she was subjected.
The judge who took charge of the case has notified the parties of the closure of the investigation and has requested both the complainant and the Prosecutor’s Office to present their indictments. The magistrate considers evidence of criminality based both on an insistent and continuous persecution that happened in areas of intimacy and on a forensic report that determined the impact it caused on the complainant.
This repetition and alteration of ordinary life, as well as the suffering caused, were the reasons why the instructor decreed the order to keep the photojournalist away from the complainant for three months, a period that ended on Wednesday. The magistrate refused to extend it due to the apparent improvement of the complainant and to consider that, after issuing the resolution that agrees to continue the procedure for the trial, it is not foreseeable that the accused will resume a practice that has already brought here This is, in fact, the first time that a paparazzi has been tried for these crimes in Spain.
If convicted, Jordi Martín faces penalties ranging from 3 months to 2 years in prison in the case of the crime of harassment – or, failing that, a fine of 6 to 24 months – and 3 months to 3 years in prison or a fine of 6 to 12 months in the case of the crime of injuries.
Author of the first photos of both the couple and Clara Chía alone that were published in various Spanish and foreign media, the paparazzi bases its defense on the freedom of the press and the general interest, although in its foundations legal, the notification received by the parties indicates that the complainant has not carried out any activity aimed at having this public profile beyond being the ex-footballer’s partner.
Likewise, the investigating judge has pointed out the illegitimacy of Martín to invade private areas such as the wedding of a close friend of Piqué in August of last year, in which he obtained the first snapshots that were published of the couple or the private parking lot of the property where the company Kosmos, owned by Piqué and where Chía works, is domiciled.
The magistrate also refers in his notification of the closure of the investigation to the pursuits that Martín made in a vehicle at high speed of the complainant, getting in the way and putting her safety at risk, as well as the attitude of the paparazzi, collaborator in various television spaces of the heart, of making public the profiles on the social networks of the young woman knowing that this would cause numerous hostile interactions towards her because of the sentimental relationship she had with Gerard Piqué after his separation from Shakira, of who the prosecuted declares an admirer.
Despite the fact that the ex-footballer decided to withdraw from the case, the letter also records the existence of incidents with Martín during the period of the investigation, alone or in the company of his two children.
