The First Section of the Provincial Court has ratified the 10-month prison sentence for a defendant accused of stealing gasoline from a truck in Playa Honda after dismissing an appeal filed by his defense. Along with him, another man was also sentenced in the first instance for the same events, in this case to seven months in prison.
The events, as stated in the ruling, took place around 2:30 a.m. on December 8, 2015, when the defendants, "acting in common and prior agreement and with the intention of obtaining an illicit patrimonial enrichment, broke the cap of the fuel tank" of a Nissan vehicle, model Cabstar, owned by a pastry shop, which was "parked on Pescante Street in Playa Honda" and "proceeded to steal approximately 20 liters of diesel." The two defendants fled "fleeing" in a vehicle in the presence of the police "leaving the container with the diesel at the scene," but were finally arrested.
The Criminal Court number 1 of Arrecife already sentenced both in the first instance for a crime of robbery with force, imposing a sentence of seven months in prison to one of them and 10 to the second, as the aggravating circumstance of recidivism concurred in the latter for having been convicted of another crime of robbery with force in 2015.
Two witnesses saw how they extracted the gasoline
The one sentenced to 10 months in prison was the one who appealed the ruling, alleging his defense that there was no valid evidence to support the conviction. However, the Provincial Court has dismissed his appeal and has ratified the conviction due to the "multiple indications" found. And, as stated in the sentence, there were two witnesses who "saw how gasoline was being extracted from the Nissan truck, observing at the same time two young men in a green vehicle leaving the place."
"After notifying the Police, they retain the defendants in the vicinity, effectively driving a green vehicle, in which they find various belongings, including three hoses, some plastic bottles, a bolt cutter and a crowbar, all of them impregnated with the smell of diesel and that have an obvious relationship with the events committed," the sentence adds.
According to the same, when asking the defendants about these belongings, they limited themselves to answering that they did not know why they were there and that the vehicle was not owned by any of them, but they did not provide "any alternative explanation as to why those effects were present" and, in addition, the vehicle had "the same characteristics as the one the witnesses saw at the scene of the events", so for the court "there is no, in this case, any other logical explanation to the events revealed that does not involve the authorship of the defendants."
