The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court has upheld the sentence of four and a half years in prison and nine years of disqualification for two police officers from the National Police Station of Arrecife, Airam Pérez González and Juan Carlos Gutiérrez Corella, for a crime of torture in its modality of serious attack on moral integrity in conjunction with a crime of injuries, committed against two detainees.
The first instance ruling that has now been confirmed, issued by the Provincial Court, also sentenced the victims, brothers Yari Damián and Nelson Jesús Lemes Méndez, to six months in prison for a crime of assault in conjunction with a misdemeanor of injuries; and acquitted four other police officers who were tried for these events that occurred at the Police Station on April 28, 2010.
After the first ruling, only the two convicted officers filed an appeal, which has now been dismissed by the Supreme Court. For the court, the direct evidence presented at trial, including recordings from three video cameras inside the Police Station, confirms the facts that were declared proven in the sentence.
The camera recordings, decisive
In those recordings, it is seen how one of the convicted officers gives one of the detainees a knee to the face in the corridor next to the cells. Afterwards, the other convicted police officer is seen changing his regulation defense weapon from one hand to the other, while they close the door. And when it opens again, the video shows one of the detainees moving down the corridor limping.
For the Chamber, deducing that the aggression occurred in that specific space and time frame in which the subjects were out of camera capture is the most logical and experience-based inference, and therefore conclusive in a sufficiently unequivocal manner.
"The absolute lack of another cause, not even in an apparent way, that justifies this behavior of the accused, leads us to affirm, with the trial court, that the acts attributed to them appeared to be motivated by an exclusive reason: to retaliate against the victim for his attitude in moments prior to proceeding with his arrest," the magistrates add. And it is that the same sentence considered proven that the brothers assaulted by the agents had resisted during their arrest, even hitting several police officers.
The Chamber also values the expert information that proves how the injuries were caused to the victim, in relation to the position of the subjects and the instrument used, and this in a way that is compatible with the account given by the victim.
