Point in mouth for the doomsayers who claim that repeat and violent thieves hardly go to prison when they are brought to justice in Barcelona. A prosecutor and a judge yesterday sent to jail without bail a habitual thief on the streets of Ciutat Vella who was arrested on Sunday afternoon after violently snatching the watch from an American tourist with his partner.
La Vanguardia has had access to the prosecutor’s brief and the magistrate’s arrest warrant, both from the 7th investigative court in Barcelona. The representative of the prosecutor’s office takes into account several elements to request imprisonment. First, the robbery was completed although the Maurice Lacroix watch valued at 3,000 euros could not be recovered because the detainee’s crony managed to escape with the piece.
Prosecutor Alexandra García Tabernero takes into account the violence used against the victim, who provided a medical report that diagnosed a torn Achilles tendon, an injury that will require surgical intervention.
The report, prepared by the Titani group of the Mossos d’Esquadra after the arrest of the Ciutat Vella fura, describes how the criminal immobilized the victim by grabbing her from behind until he threw her to the ground, then stepping on her left ankle forcefully before snatching her flip the clock. After tearing off the piece, the thief fled and upon discovering the police presence, he threw the watch to the ground, which his partner picked up and avoided the officers.
The victim, a tourist passing through, confirmed the police complaint yesterday in court, turning that last statement into pre-constituted evidence that will be used on the day the trial is held without requiring his presence.
The prosecutor highlights in her letter the risk of flight due to the possibility of a sentence that can reach five years, the lack of roots – the suspect is not registered – and that he has no known means of living other than criminal activity. The detainee, of Moroccan nationality and 32 years old, is in an irregular situation in Spain and on September 12 he was notified of the start of an expulsion file. Since February he has had two search and arrest warrants, has seven criminal records and 29 arrests, two for robberies with violence and intimidation.
Judge Francisco Miralles Carrió accepts the prosecutor’s arguments as valid and reproduces in his prison order a detail that the victim told him yesterday during her statement in court. When the criminal had him immobilized from behind, before throwing him to the ground, on Paseo Joan de Borbó in Barceloneta, he approached his ear and said, laughing: “Welcome to Barcelona.”
The thief didn’t realize that the shot was going to backfire on him and that a prosecutor and a judge would cross his path and, this time, they were going to send him to prison.
