Albert López, convicted of the Barcelona Urban Police crime, denies having confessed to the murder of agent Pedro Rodríguez. The convicted man contacted La Vanguardia this Wednesday through his lawyer to clarify the information that appeared on Tuesday and which indicated that, after seven years of silence and evasion, López had acknowledged the facts for which he had been sentenced with the objective of obtaining prison permits. The convicted man has denied everything. He assures that in the frequent conversations he has with the psychiatrist at the Quatre Camins prison, within the framework of his prison treatment program, he acknowledged having covered up the crime, an act for which he showed his regret for not having acted otherwise, as for example, having called the police.
Recognition of the facts is a condition to be taken into account by the professionals of the prison treatment boards so that the prisoners progress in grade and are eligible for weekend release permits. López, sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder, has been in prison for seven years, has served a quarter of his sentence and could qualify for permits. Hence, with the center’s professionals I work on aspects such as forgiveness, repentance and assumption of responsibilities.
If Albert’s words were true, they would not represent any twist in the script with respect to what he always maintained in the trial: that he had limited himself to helping Rosa Peral get rid of the body of her boyfriend, Pedro Rodríguez, by helping her burn the body in the trunk of his own car on a forest track in the Foix reservoir. This version is the one that López maintained at trial. And it is the same one that at least he stated to this newspaper this Wednesday.
The day before, El Periódico published information indicating that López had recognized the facts for which he was convicted, that is, that he ended the life of Pedro Rodríguez along with his lover, Rosa Peral. The information was not only published by the newspaper but was confirmed by news agencies in the same terms. López’s denial can be interpreted in two ways. Either he really confessed his involvement in the murder to the prison psychiatrist and, after the commotion caused, decided to back down, or he only admitted to having covered up the crime and this limited assumption of responsibility was misinterpreted.
Albert’s alleged confession spread like wildfire. There were reports that López had confessed to the crime, implying that he exclusively claimed responsibility for the murder, exonerating Rosa Peral. In fact, based on this information, one of the woman’s lawyers pointed out that they would study the possibility of presenting an appeal for review before the Supreme Court to assess an eventual acquittal of her client. As the hours passed and seeing that Albert’s confession could be questioned and that there was no document proving it, Peral’s other lawyer, Olga Arderiu, admitted on TV3 that it made no sense to demand a review of sentence if no new evidence had emerged that would allow the case to be reopened.
Seeing the media interest that the news has generated, Albert López’s lawyer, José Luís Bravo, has come out publicly to deny the information and assure that his client had not confessed to the crime. “The information is false. Albert López has assured me that he has never confessed to having participated in Pedro’s death,” he said on the TV3 program Tot es mou.
The Barcelona Court sentenced the Urban Police officers, Albert López and Rosa Peral to 20 years and 25 years in prison, respectively, for having murdered Pedro Rodríguez, also an agent of the same police force and the woman’s romantic partner. The sentence considered that both planned the murder and took advantage of the fact that the victim was asleep to kill him with a blunt object.