The Investigating Court Number 1 of Arrecife has agreed to extend the provisional prison term of Romina Celeste's husband, Raúl Díaz Chacón, accused of the crime of the young woman in January 2019, for two more years. A few days after Romina's death was confirmed - whose body was burned and dismembered in her home in Costa Teguise - her husband was arrested and imprisoned as a precautionary measure, but the fixed period of two years was about to expire, so this Wednesday a hearing was held to decide whether to extend the measure.
In that hearing, both the Prosecutor's Office and the popular accusation requested to extend the provisional prison, and Judge Sandra Barrera has already issued an order accepting this request. In addition, in the resolution she anticipates that “the transfer to a higher instance of this procedure for its celebration is imminent”, that is, that the instruction is about to be concluded and the opening of oral trial is ordered.
As the main reason for keeping the accused in prison, the magistrate points to the risk of flight, given the “minimal roots of the investigated”. And it is that although he is a native of Lanzarote and his defense appealed to his family, pointing out that he has two daughters and even “the disability of his mother and the disability of his sister”, the order underlines, as the popular accusation pointed out in the hearing, that “such people throughout the procedure have never expressed dependence on the investigated and this was never pointed out by him either in police or judicial headquarters”.
In addition, the judge concludes that the rest of the legal requirements to extend pre-trial detention are also met, including “the seriousness of the crime”, the need to “prevent a new attack or the commission of new criminal acts, given the reports of specialized agents”, and also avoid the “concealment of evidence”. “It should not be forgotten that certain parts of the victim's body have not yet been found”, warns the magistrate, who adds that “in any case this cause is not the determining one”.
“The non-existence of less serious measures to guarantee the same purposes is more important”, she underlines, adding that “the seriousness of the imputed facts is another of the reasons for the extension, as well as the examination of the exposed indications, which, by the way, suggest with some rigor several crimes”. Among them, in addition to homicide, a crime of habitual abuse, a crime of injury in the family environment, desecration of a corpse and simulation of a crime are included.
“It goes without saying that according to the result of the investigation proceedings carried out so far, there are sufficient reasons to believe that the person against whom the order for extension of imprisonment is to be issued is criminally responsible for such infractions”, the order adds.
"I don't think I'll tell the next one"
The magistrate also recalls that although the accused denied the homicide and assured that he found her already deceased in the house, he did acknowledge having “got rid of the corpse, having tried to burn it on the barbecue and that, as he did not achieve his objective, he dismembered it and threw his remains and various belongings in different points of the Lanzarote coast, as well as in various containers”.
To this he adds the evidence in the case both on the death of the young woman and on previous episodes of alleged gender violence. In this regard, he recalls that when her husband reported the disappearance of the young woman days after her death, the Civil Guard carried out a monitoring device of the rental vehicle she used and also initiated telephone tapping. In one of the conversations, Raúl Díaz spoke with a relative and told him what he had done with the young woman's body.
“Likewise, Doña Romina Celeste Nuñez Rodriguez had denounced Don Raul Díaz Cachón in August 2018 for a crime of injury in the field of violence against women, the case having been processed in this Court, although it was dismissed when Dña withdrew the complaint. Romina Celeste Nuñez Rodriguez and refusing to be recognized by the Forensic Doctor, and not requesting a protection order”, the order adds.
In this regard, he recalls that there are also records of the victim's conversations with a friend, to whom on December 29, 2018 she told that her husband had hit her and that “he almost killed her”. In fact, it also appears that she went to the doctor that day, although she ended up leaving before a doctor saw her. “I don't think I'll tell the next one”, the young woman wrote to her friend shortly before her death.
