Ahmed Tommouhi was imprisoned for 15 years after the Provincial Court of Barcelona sentenced him to 24 years and 22 days in prison for allegedly committing two sexual assaults in 1992. However, the person imprisoned was not the correct one, but rather someone who he looked a lot like the real rapist.
After these 15 years in prison and fighting for his innocence, the Supreme Court now annuls the conviction of Ahmed Tommouhi. A conviction that was ruled without taking into account the semen report that proved the innocence of the prisoner. In 1992, the Scientific Police of Barcelona analyzed this remaining semen recovered from the victim’s underwear, however, as the experts did not appear to testify, the test was not taken into account “despite being an admitted test” .
The list of evidence also includes the testimony of the experts, as well as the statement of the victim – whose testimony was “the only evidence taken into consideration by the Provincial Court” of Barcelona for the conviction – and who later recognized in an interview “his mistake in identifying” Tommouhi.
The semen that was recovered from the underwear of the victim of one of the rapes turned out to be from Antonio García Carbonell. However, no analyzable tissues or biological remains were preserved from the other violations, so Tommouhi was still charged with three sexual assaults.
Ahmed Tommouhi spent 15 years in jail waiting for a pardon that never came, which the Supreme Court had recommended and which the chief prosecutor of Catalonia, José María Mena, had requested in 1999. However, neither the PP Executive nor that of the PSOE dared to grant this pardon to a man convicted of four violations.
In June 2000, the Supreme Court denied the defense the necessary authorization to file an appeal for review, considering that the doubts that the new evidence regarding Tommouhi’s participation could raise were not “sufficient” to establish “unequivocally and conclusively the innocence of the condemned”.
In January of this year -against the criteria of the Prosecutor’s Office- the defense was allowed to present the appeal for review given the “elements of evidence and new facts” presented by the convicted person. Now the Supreme Court has advanced the ruling this Thursday and it is expected that in the coming days it will make the full sentence public.
In 1991, several rapes took place in the provinces of Barcelona and Tarragona, and Ahmed Tommouhi and his compatriot Abderrazak Mounib were imprisoned. Both were innocent. Tommouhi was initially accused of 17 crimes, and ended up being sentenced to more than 100 years in prison for four rapes and one robbery. The only evidence against him were the alleged “acknowledgments” by the victims. Abderrazak Mounib, who also always maintained his innocence and did not accept compensation of 18 million pesetas from the State after the annulment of his sentence by the Supreme Court, died of a heart attack in prison in the year 2000.
