The Prosecutor's Office requests that the Court of Las Palmas convict the three women and two men accused of belonging to a network that brought Nigerian women to Spain to sexually exploit them, because it does not believe the defendants' version and considers that there is sufficient evidence against them.
This Wednesday, in the second and final session of the trial against the seven alleged members of the network, as two are fugitives, the defense attorneys, however, have requested an acquittal for all of them.
The lawyer for the accused S.O., who is considered the main ringleader of the network and faces the harshest sentence of 11 years and 6 months in prison (8 years are requested for the rest of the accused), has argued that the prosecution in this case has confused "marginality with criminality," given their vulnerable situation.
Furthermore, this lawyer has pointed out that the defendants' right to effective judicial protection has been violated and has rejected the translation of the defendants' telephone wiretaps as evidence due to being improperly conducted
The main defendant denies the facts
The main defendant has denied to the court that she performed voodoo on protected witness number 2, who in the first session said she had to eat the raw heart of a chicken and was sworn in three times to commit to paying the 55,000 euros that S.O. demanded from her for her trip to Spain, a claim she has also rejected
"I have not profited nor have I brought anyone," the defendant stressed, who also denies taking protected witness number 2 and another girl, whom she housed in her house in Arrecife (Lanzarote), and forcing them into prostitution, first on the aforementioned island, and then in Madrid and Vitoria, in addition to beating them, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office.
The accused explained that she is a hotel maid and that when she arrived in Spain in 2007, she had other jobs and worked as a prostitute to support her children and the rest of her family who were in Nigeria.
"I charge 1,200 euros a month" and if what the prosecutor points out were true, he would have earned half a million euros a year, he has stressed, a point his lawyer has elaborated onHe met protected witness number 2 in his country and, in 2015, while he was living in Lanzarote, his parents and aunt called him to help his daughter because she was going to Spain and had nowhere to stay, he said.The accused S.V. has admitted to knowing S.O., but has denied controlling the protected witness number 2 and the other girl, who the Prosecution claims were sexually exploited, although she admitted to knowing they were prostitutes and that she had seen them at the first woman's house, in Arrecife, where she also resides.
However, she stated that she is unaware if they owed any money to the main defendant, from whom she received no orders.The third defendant, S.I., has also denied the facts and only answered her lawyer's questions. In her statement, she indicated that she knew the other two defendants, and the one considered the head of the network, since 2015 as a "compatriot," but she stressed that she was not friends with her to the point of knowing if she brought people from Nigeria.
The accused G.O. explained to the court that he resided in Madrid, that he met S.O. on a flight to Nigeria where they happened to be on the same flight, and that on one occasion he rented her a room in his house, to which she came with her partner, although he denied that prostitution took place there or that protected witness number 2 or the other girl, who were exploited by the organization according to the Public Prosecutor's Office, stayed there
The fifth defendant, who resides in Madrid and whom the prosecutor identifies as a 'mule' within the organization, has stated that he does not know S.O. "at all" and has admitted that his current account is with Sabadell bank and that he provided it to a friend – one of the defendants declared in absentia (S.N.) – so that they could deposit money owed to him.This happened on May 26, 2016, when he received an income of 400 euros and withdrew it the same day and gave it to S.N., with whom he had no mutual friends.According to protected witness number 2, that money was the last payment made to the organization from Barcelona, after managing to flee and report the events, first to an undercover agent of the Mossos d'Esquadra who was operating in the Las Ramblas area and who gained her trust, and then to the National Police.