The trial against the alleged stalker of Paula Bonet, Víctor G.T., was held this Friday behind closed doors in the criminal court number 10 of Barcelona, ??in the Ciutat de la Justícia. The prosecution, represented by Carla Vall, asks for four years in prison for harassment and threats. The prosecution, for its part, has made a request for three years in prison for coercion and threats, while the defense, represented by the lawyer Sergi Mercé, asks for acquittal.
Mercé has alleged as defense an “erotomanic delusional mental disorder, which consists of believing that someone in a higher stage has fallen in love with you”. He stated that the defendant is undergoing treatment for it and that he was convinced that Bonet was attracted to him. For his part, Vall doubts that the accused suffers from “this disease, which appeared by surprise a month ago, when we had been in a three-year process. The forensic examiner attached to the court denies that this disorder exists, we are rather dealing with a speech of extreme misogynistic right”.
The judged events began in mid-2019, when the defendant began to send messages and appear in person at the artist and writer’s workshop. At different times, he sent her a cut-up plastic eel in an envelope and wrote insulting and threatening tweets. Bonet annulled her courses, changed address and lived semi-hidden. The judge issued a restraining order that Víctor G.T. it jumped One morning, he grabbed the bars of Bonet’s workshop window and yelled at him.
Sources close to the defense testimonies affirmed that the defendant had said that “feminism and Paula Bonet now disgust him.” Vall stated that “everyone’s right to defense has been used to attack the victim. Accusing victims for denouncing the attacks they have suffered is a sexist act, I have read a text from the year 1404 by Christine de Pizan , in which she rebelled against those who say that women like to receive violence. Six centuries later, we continue to refute the same argument.”
For her part, Mercé alleges “a defense of erotomanic delusional mental disorder” because she understands that, at first, her client “insistently wanted some kind of relationship, contact her, attended the places where she went, but without the intention of intimidating or harass.” The violent messages on social networks “arrive later, as he is forced to do so to defend himself from the attacks he received through the media”, which would have caused the accused “to be threatened with physical attacks on him and his family” , which the accusation denies stating that “there is no complaint that proves that”. The stalker claims that he later approached Bonet “in order to apologize.” But what about the threatening messages? The defendant explains it by “black bile. Reading what she said about me, I had an outburst and wanted to vent in a sarcastic way.” Vall read excerpts from the messages written by the accused, “in case any of you see sarcasm in them”: “If I come across you, I’m going to rape and dismember you to please all the miserable vagabonds that populate the streets of Barcelona. You’ll see what a feast I’ll save the eyes for last and put the nipples in a lunch box for my own enjoyment.” For the defendant, what she and Bonet engaged in was “a literary game, like a battle of roosters.” For Vall, “when everyone interprets something as threats, the one who has a problem is the one who says that he is going to rape and kill her.”
Victor GT. spoke to the media upon leaving the trial. She explained that her attraction to Bonet stemmed from “my interest in women’s literature. She intended to enter feminist activism, as she had also been part of the Student Union. I attended her talks, I saw that she noticed me, I I threw the hook, I perceived that he liked it, but that due to conditions such as the difference in age or status he did not dare to take the step and invited me to take it. I did not doubt that, of my imagination. “
And the eel cut into small pieces in an envelope marked ‘the rapist’? Here the lawyer replied: “In the doorway of his building, my client found an eel. He interpreted that Mrs. Bonet had left it for him to get his attention, in the context of the disorder she suffers from. As the eel meant the aggressors, he cut it into pieces and sent it to her with a drawn smile”.
Victor GT. He continues “convinced that she intended to get my attention, perhaps not because she liked me but to get media coverage, but she wanted me to believe that she was in love with me.” For Carla Vall, “it is insulting, when he is the one who chooses her because she is famous, and subjects her to a persecution that prevents her from presenting her books, teaching her classes and doing exhibitions. As you know, she has also refused to give interviews about This question”.
The trial has been carried out behind closed doors at the request of Vall, to avoid “the victimization in the process of those who have denounced and feel fear”. The Valencian artist has not had eye contact with the accused either since she has declared behind her a screen “to guarantee her greater tranquility, since he intended to intimidate her, staring at her”, in the words of the lawyer.
The judge dismissed the request of Sergi Mercé, who appealed that the trial be held behind closed doors and asked that the screen be removed. “It seems to us a disproportionate accusation, like the same provisional prison, where he has spent ten months for crimes whose sentence does not exceed two years, so if he was convicted it is likely that he would not have entered into prison. prison. We believe that the balloon has been inflated by the media”.
Carla Vall has requested a sentence of two years for a crime of harassment and another two for threats, in addition to the fact that the accused cannot come within 1,000 meters of Bonet, or to his home, or place of work, studies or any other place I frequent often. The lawyer has requested that he also not communicate with her for at least five years. In addition, the prosecution has also requested a fine with a daily quota for 24 months, with subsidiary personal responsibility of one day of deprivation of liberty for every two unpaid daily quotas. As for moral damage, 15,000 euros have been claimed.
Carla Vall has explained that they have been “three years of ordeal since the judicial process has been interrupted after so many episodes and extensions of the complaints”. On the other hand, she explained that Bonet “faces this trial as a process of self-reparation” since for her “it has been very difficult to cope with this extensive and intense harassment since there have been many chapters that did not even stop with the two occasions that there was preventive detention. Therefore, she sees it as a moment of restoration of the dignity that this individual has tried to remove from her.”
The lawyer reveals that, thanks to Paula Bonet’s complaint, another victim of the accused emerged, who is charged in another case for very similar behavior with another woman. “We are facing an aggressor profile that hates women and therefore attacks them,” she explained to La Vanguardia.
