The trial for the homicide of the young Romina Celeste in Costa Teguise during New Year's Eve of 2018 has concluded this Tuesday before the Jury Tribunal in the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas. The case, which was expected to last for two weeks, has finally only had three sessions, after the defendant Raúl Díaz Cachón pleaded guilty to each and every one of the crimes he was charged with.
As a result of this confession, the Prosecutor's Office has modified its initial indictment. With this, it has requested a reduction of the penalties, taking into account the mitigating circumstances of reparation of damage and confession.
The trial is now awaiting the verdict of the Jury Tribunal, which will be known throughout the day. At the end of this last hearing and taking advantage of his right to say the last word, the defendant decided to apologize, something he did not do in the first session in which he participated and which the private and popular accusations have reproached him in their last speeches. "I apologize, even though I don't deserve it, to her family, to mine, and to the entire society," Raúl Díaz concluded.
"We are not facing repentance, nor a request for forgiveness. He continues to stage, it continues to be a theater, he continues to be with that coldness with which we have had him present during the three sessions," the popular accusation reproached the confessed murderer minutes before.
The fact that Raúl Díaz Cachón has admitted the crimes charged by the Prosecutor's Office has not been surprising. He had already announced his intention since the end of 2022.
The lawyer who has represented him from January to the present has managed to get him to recognize the habitual mistreatment against Romina Celeste, the injuries in the context of gender violence, for the aggression episode in the Gran Hotel de Arrecife on August 8, 2018; injuries in the context of domestic violence, after the episode of mistreatment in the family home, between December 28 and 29, three days before killing her; the crime of homicide, after ending her life between New Year's Eve 2018 and New Year's Day 2019; the desecration of a corpse, by burning and dismembering her; and a crime of simulation of crime, by reporting the disappearance of Romina Celeste on January 8, 2019, when he had already killed her.
"I am my client's defender and it is paradoxical that I have requested his guilt," explained Raúl Díaz's defense attorney during his intervention before the Jury. He also announced that the sentence will not be appealed.
Raúl still doesn't tell what he did with Romina's corpse
The delay of the case, which led to Raul Díaz serving in provisional prison the maximum time stipulated by law, the recognition of the facts and the reparation of damages will serve as a mitigating factor when dictating a sentence. "If there are mitigating factors, we have to apply them, even though it seems like an atrocious homicide," said the Public Prosecutor during his intervention at the end of the trial.
At the same time, he revealed that, against personal criteria, the case cannot be labeled as a murder, in which there is treachery or intent, but as a homicide because the body has not been found. "It is not a macho murder, it is a macho homicide," explained the Public Prosecutor. The forensic doctors who reconstructed the events together with Raúl Díaz contradict his version of how he burned the body, dismembered it and threw it into the sea and stressed that his explanation "is contrary to the laws of nature".
The lack of guarantees that explain how he killed his wife and what he really did with her body has hindered the investigation and prevented him from being tried for murder, a crime that implies more years in prison than homicide.
"We know that he really used the barbecue, that's for sure, and that he also ended her life because that lung appeared on Las Cucharas Beach." However, the contradictions in which Raúl Díaz incurs when recounting the events has prevented knowing how he ended his wife's life. For this same reason, the popular accusation, personified by the Canarian Institute of Equality, has changed the accusation from murder to homicide after Raúl Díaz's confession, although it has expressed its disagreement.
Regarding the frivolity of Raúl Díaz Cachón, he has highlighted that "for two years he continued to conduct interviews" before the media already in prison. "He could open the rib cage with scissors, but he could use other weapons, other utensils when extracting the lung. We don't know what has happened, where the rest of the body is, it is in his mouth, in his memory, in his coldness. No repentance, desire to finish, yes. Four defenses, each of them with a direction. The last companion is the one who has tried to end this matter. He has no manifestation of grief, nor a manifestation of repentance," defended the lawyer of the Canarian Institute of Equality.
Reduction of penalties
The confessed perpetrator of the homicide of the young Paraguayan woman deposited in the account offered by the Prosecutor's Office, most of the 300,000 euros requested by the Public Prosecutor's Office as a form of reparation of the damage, a civil compensation for the crimes committed. This money will serve as economic "compensation" for the mother and children of the young woman. Also as a mitigating factor in the penalty that will fall on Raúl Díaz.
"The only mitigating factor is that he has tried to repair the damage with money. He has believed that he can silence the family and the victims without giving the correct version of what happened," defended the popular accusation.
"That he was under the effects of drugs was a subjective fact, there was no one there to see it," insisted the defense attorney. "I wanted a real objective fact that would serve as a mitigating factor, the reparation of the damage, which is the only thing he can do because he cannot bring her back to life. At least Romina's children have their education and their lives assured."
After the reduction exposed in the new indictment of the Prosecutor's Office, the requested penalties would be:
- Crime of habitual mistreatment: goes from three years of prison to one year, three months and one day, as well as disqualification from passive suffrage, deprivation of the fact of possession and carrying of weapons for five years.
- Crime of injuries in the context of gender violence (Gran Hotel episode): goes from one year of prison to six months and one day in prison, special disqualification for the exercise of passive suffrage during the time of the sentence and deprivation and possession of weapons for three years.
- Crime of injuries in the context of gender and domestic violence (aggression of December 28): remains at nine months and one day of prison, disqualification from passive suffrage for that time and deprivation of possession of weapons for three years.
- Crime of homicide: goes from asking for 15 years of prison and absolute disqualification, as well as ten years of supervised release after serving the prison sentence to requesting 12 years, six months and one day of prison, absolute disqualification in the time of the sentence and ten years of supervised release.
- Crime of desecration of a corpse: goes from five months to three months and disqualification for the right of passive suffrage during the time of the sentence
- Crime of simulation of crime: the fine goes from nine months, with daily installments of 12 euros, to six months with daily installments of 12 euros, and in case of non-payment.
As well as the payment of the costs of the trial.
The gender perspective
"Even after she died, he acted with contempt towards her, he said that she was out there prostituting herself," recalled the Public Prosecutor, the statement offered by Y., a friend of Romina Celeste, who has testified as a witness in the trial. Machista violence continues to be a social scourge and "the gender perspective in justice continues to be necessary," stressed the lawyer of the victim's family.
"The gender component is unavoidable in this case. The homicide of the young woman in Costa Teguise became the first of the year 2019. Romina Celeste was the first victim of machista violence of the year 2019," she added.
"He assumes the protagonism, he is so cold and calculating that he tried to erase in the Google search engine how to make a phone disappear. He planned everything, renting a vehicle, removing the location of the phones, he continued consuming prostitution, "as a way to continue exercising gender violence and objectification", highlighted during her turn the private accusation, headed by the defending lawyer of Romina's family, Emilia Zaballos.
At the same time, she has alluded to the failures of the system for which Romina Celeste's life could not be saved: "That the system worked is something we cannot say".
"It is true that Y., a friend of the victim and witness in the trial, delivered the messages, but I put the friends thing in quotation marks," denounced the private accusation, headed by the defending lawyer of the family. The victim confessed to her friend through a message that it was not the first time that he had hit her and that she was afraid because she believed that the next time she would not be able to tell it.
Regarding the conscience of Romina's friends, who were aware of the episodes of aggression and gender violence she suffered, the family's lawyer related that "they have not complicated their lives helping her when she was alive and they have not complicated their lives to help her being dead".
"If citizens have knowledge of a behavior outside the law, we have to bring it to the attention of the authority. Even if only for that commitment they should have reported it," related Emilia Zaballos in her final intervention before the Jury Tribunal.
"She was with a haggard face and with her face she said help me and they continued without reporting it," alluded the lawyer to the testimony offered by I., a friend of both, and of the last people who saw the young woman alive.
Before deniers of gender violence, "we have to continue working", revealed the private accusation.
"We had a very sad January in 2019, but the December of 2020 was worse. More women killed at the hands of their partner and minor victims who are left without their mother", defended the popular accusation, personified by the Canarian Institute of Equality.
