The Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has sentenced two men to eleven years in prison for an attempted murder with treachery of a man who lived in one of the occupied homes in the south of the island that the defendants intended to evict.
The two defendants will not be able to go within half a kilometer of the victim for ten years after leaving prison and must pay 250,000 euros for the serious injuries suffered by the complainant and another 1,000 euros to his daughter, whom they also assaulted, plus the amount to be determined for psychological sequelae
They hit him several times with an iron bar
The Court considers it proven that around eight o'clock on the evening of February 14, 2023, the two defendants agreed and aggressively went to meet the victim as she was leaving an occupied dwelling in Arona, carrying a bar or a blunt iron object.
With this instrument, they suddenly struck the victim on the head, and when he fell to the ground, unable to defend himself, they continued to hit him forcefully, both with their hands and legs, even grabbing him tightly by the neck.
As a consequence, the man suffered injuries consisting of several fractures to his head, blows to his side for which he required surgery and rehabilitation, taking 732 days to heal, although he still suffers from weakness in his right arm and some scars.The daughter received a strong blow to her left shoulder when she tried to stop the aggression and although she did not require medical or surgical treatment, it took 20 days to heal, leaving her with psychological and psychiatric sequelae.
The objective: to evict and control the property
The motive for the attack, according to the Civil Guard's investigations, originated from the accused intending to evict and control the property for their own use or that of third parties.
The two defendants were identified without a shadow of a doubt by the victims through photographs, line-ups, and at trial.
Furthermore, one of them's phone places him at that location and time of the assault, and the other's remained turned off
The daughter recalls that on that day her father had a brief conversation with both of them outside the house, that they were furious, that one of them was carrying a metal bar in his hand, that he was the one who hit him first although then both of them did it at the same time, that they tried to suffocate him and stopped when the person who managed the property appeared.
A group that controlled occupied homes
The investigation determined that behind the aggression was a group of people who controlled occupied homes, for which they charged 300 euros per month, without ruling out that violent methods were used in their eviction
The victim confessed that over several months she forgot what happened due to the amount of pills she had to take, although she was able to remember it little by little until finally she sees the faces of the accused "at every moment," and for this reason she traveled 14,000 kilometers from Venezuela to attend the oral hearing
The Court opens up the possibility that it may be dealing with the crime of perjury by one of the witnesses for declaring that he remembered nothing and did not know the house where the events occurred, which was denied by the Civil Guard.
