The headline that heads this article is not new. Domingo Marchena published it in La Vanguardia 24 years ago, when he explained for the umpteenth time the case of Ahmed Tommouhi and Abderrazak Mounib, two innocents convicted of rape. At that time they had been in prison for 8 years, but that headline in a two-page report, like many other pieces of information in other media, did not cause the justice machinery to put them on the street. The first would end up serving 15 years in prison and the second died in prison in 2000. This week, the Supreme Court annulled the sentence, based on an ocular examination that was damn wrong.
The story of false culprits with sentences based on circumstantial elements is a recurring topic in literature and cinema –several by Alfred Hitchcock– but despite this, there is a justice machine that on rare occasions puts innocent people behind bars without evidence. forceful. One of the most publicized cases in Spain was that of Dolores Vázquez, who spent 17 months in prison, convicted as the author of the 1999 murder of Rocío Wanninkhof, daughter of her friend Alicia Hornos. It was of little use that there was no evidence against her. In February 2002, the Andalusian Superior Court of Justice annulled the sentence against Dolores Vázquez and her verdict. The capture of the British Tony King, accused of the murder of another young woman, Sonia Carabantes, ended up determining, this time with real evidence, who was the perpetrator of the crime.
People who have suffered deprivation of liberty (and much more) due to wrongful convictions or preventive imprisonment if they are guilty have the right to financial compensation. Vázquez asked for 4 million euros in his day. The Ministry of Justice, the National Court, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court opposed it. In a recent HBO Max documentary, the woman assured that she had not received anything.
Yes, Rafael Ricardi, a citizen of El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz) who spent 13 years of his life in prison, convicted of a rape he did not commit, was compensated, at least with money. The perpetrator of the crime was captured many years later thanks to DNA. Ricardi was paid compensation of half a million euros, which was later doubled by the National Court.
A case that seemed written by Hitchcock is that of the Orenso lawyer José Manuel Rodríguez. One fine day in 1997, the police arrested him in his office accused of committing 15 robberies. He was sentenced to 9 years in prison in 1999. As he was confused with someone who looked a lot like him, he decided to document all his activity with a notary. He thus escaped from prison until the real robber ended up being captured.
A Guinean, Mauricio Muañache, experienced the same type of nightmare. Arrested in Valencia for drug trafficking, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison. A compatriot of his who had been arrested red-handed by the police identified himself as Mauricio to the agents. When he did not appear at the trial, a search and arrest warrant was issued for him and ended with a sentence that was ratified by the Supreme Court. After going on a 35-day hunger strike, Picassent prison officials convinced police to cross-match the prints of the man they caught with drugs with those of Mauricio. He was locked up for 15 months.
Dutchman Romano van der Dussen spent twelve years of his life in prison for rapes he did not commit. In addition to the prison sentence, he had to bear the stigma of the rapist in prison, where he was beaten by other prisoners. The DNA, again, was the decisive proof that the perpetrator of the crimes was a British sex offender named Mark Dixie. Romano asked for compensation of six million euros. They granted him much less: 147,000.
Another chain of errors led José Antonio Valdivieso to spend 9 years in prison – sentenced to 13 years – for two robberies committed by three criminals in Móstoles (Madrid) in 2001. Twelve years after the sentence, the Supreme Court annulled it. They compensated him with 466,000 euros, although nothing compensates for the free life that he lost.
