The Tarragona Court has acquitted the two local police officers of Vila-seca accused of attempted murder, serious torture, allowing serious torture and falsifying documents. The judge made the decision due to “lack of evidence.”
The events date back to 2013, when a man was allegedly beaten in a nightclub in La Pineda.
Months later, the victim claimed to have received an anonymous note stating that the injuries were caused by the two agents.
In the case, the Vila-seca City Council was also acquitted, as possibly civilly responsible for the damage to the man, and the then head of the local police, who went to trial but at the beginning of the hearing the prosecutor withdrew the accusation of documentary falsification and concealment.
In the sentence advanced by the ‘Diari de Tarragona’, the judge analyzes the fourteen pieces of evidence that were put on the table during the trial, based on witnesses and analysis.
The judge shows that the victim “does not remember what happened” and recognizes that there are “strong and powerful doubts about the certainty of the reported facts.” For all this, he affirms that there is an “impossibility of determining how the events happened” and that, faced with a scenario in which “the evidence has alternative theories more favorable to the accused or counter-incidences that prevent a condemnatory construction”, he acquits the police officers. of all alleged crimes. The Prosecutor’s Office requested up to 20 years in prison for both agents.
In the trial that took place at the end of November 2023, the alleged victim stated that she thought that the injuries she suffered had occurred because she had been run over and that she did not remember how she arrived injured at the door of the apartment where she lived.
The events date back to January 2013 within the framework of the end-of-season party for PortAventura workers that was held at the old Pacha de la Pineda nightclub (Vila-seca).
According to the man, they had put “something” in his drink during the night and the next thing he remembered was waking up at the entrance to his apartment building in Salou, seriously injured. However, he said he walked “four or five kilometres” back to the nightclub to retrieve the keys to the flat which he had in the car. During the journey, a pedestrian assisted him and called an ambulance, which took him to the Santa Tecla hospital, where he was admitted for nine days.
Upon being discharged, he returned to his home in Lleida. A few days later he felt unwell and went to the doctor, who decided to admit him back to the hospital.
According to the prosecutor’s brief, he suffered three broken ribs, a lung injury, a traumatic pneumothorax, a post-traumatic pleural effusion, and post-traumatic lacunar amnesia.
For the public ministry, the injuries were of such severity “that they implied a vital compromise for the injured party, since if he had not received medical attention he would have died.”
But a year and a half after the events, in the mailbox of his home in Lleida he received an anonymous letter in which two local police officers from Vila-seca were directly implicated in the injuries he suffered. It was then that he presented the complaint to the Mossos d’Esquadra, who began an investigation that led to the arrest of the three defendants.
The case previously had another derivative. In 2020, two Mossos d’Esquadra agents who were accused of having avoided the investigation into the local police officers of Vila-seca were tried and acquitted.
The prosecution requested 2.5 years in prison, 1 year and 9 months of disqualification, and a fine of 1,800 euros for an alleged crime of falsifying documents, and another five months of disqualification for omission of the duty to prosecute crimes.
The ruling concluded that it had not been proven that both police officers had a preconceived plan not to investigate the facts, as the prosecution maintained.
The resolution was not unanimous and one of the three magistrates cast a dissenting vote because he considered that they should be condemned.