The Second Section of the Provincial Court has set November 23 as the new date for the trial for the attempted murder of a 16-month-old baby at the Lanzarote airport.
The oral hearing was scheduled to be held on September 9, but it was suspended due to a series of difficulties as a result of Covid restrictions. The trial was to be held in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, but the defendant and the parties were to intervene from Arrecife.
According to sources close to the case, the oral hearing will now also be held in Gran Canaria, but the defendant is expected to travel there.
Accused of up to five crimes
The events to be judged took place on October 20, 2018 at the Lanzarote airport where, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the accused assaulted the child's mother and the child, whom he threw "forcefully against the ground" while threatening to kill him.
In addition to a crime of attempted murder, R.L.D. is also accused of a crime of coercion, a continuing crime of threats, a crime of mistreatment in the family environment and a continuing crime of breach of sentence.
Four days before the events that took place at the airport and despite having a restraining order, the accused appeared in Cádiz, where his former partner and their son were, and "forced" her to "acquire a plane ticket, in the name of the defendant, to return together, in the company of the minor son, to the island of Lanzarote".
To do this, according to the Prosecutor's Office, he "snatched her wallet and broke the amount of 110 euros, seizing her mobile terminal, deleting all the messages from the WhatsApp application that he had sent her previously, blocking several of her contacts" and "telling her that, if she did not comply with his demand, he would take her son away from her".
"If you don't buy me the ticket, I don't care, I'll kill you and your son", the Public Prosecutor's Office states that he also told the child's mother, "causing her real and serious fear that he could carry it out". Threats that, according to the indictment, continued in the days leading up to the trip.
Requests a sentence of more than 20 years in prison
Once at the Lanzarote airport, in the area set up for baggage collection, the Prosecutor's Office states that the mother asked the accused "to hand over the minor", to which he replied that "he was not going to give it to her because he was going to take him by night on the boat to Cádiz".
This forced the woman "to go to the Civil Guard officers who were there in order to request assistance, at which time the defendant, acting with the intention of causing damage to her physical integrity, grabbed her hair, throwing her to the ground, where he kicked her".
Subsequently, once "agents of the Civil Guard and the mother of the injured party arrived at the scene, the latter trying to pick up the minor, who was in the arms of the defendant", he lifted the child "into the air abruptly" and after taking "a step back" and gathering "momentum", "threw him forcefully against the ground" and "about two meters away, approximately near the iron reinforcement of the baggage belt".
The Prosecutor's Office requests a sentence of 20 years and three months in prison for the accused, as well as restraining orders with respect to both the minor and the mother, for whom it claims compensation of 61,000 and 60,000 euros respectively.
