The Provincial Court of Las Palmas has judged this Wednesday an agent of the Civil Guard accused of two crimes of coercion and another two of harassment, for which the prosecutor asks for a total of four years of imprisonment, as well as 15 days of fine for each offense committed at 12 euros per day. During the trial, the Prosecutor's Office withdrew the initial accusation of threats and torture, for which it was asking for a total of one more year in prison for this Civil Guard agent, who is now temporarily removed from the corps because he is undergoing psychiatric treatment.
According to what has been stated during the trial, the accused, who in 2005 belonged to the Exterior Surveillance section of the Civil Guard, appeared at the home of a citizen of Arab origin to ask for explanations for some aggressions that the son of his former sentimental partner had suffered, supposedly carried out by that individual.
The events, which took place in 2005, occurred as a result of the son of the accused's sentimental partner asking him for help to locate the alleged perpetrator of a beating he had received. The Civil Guard agent went to the San Fermín apartments (Puerto del Carmen) accompanied by the son and uncle of his partner, as well as his gardener, who spoke Arabic and would serve as a linguistic interpreter, to look for the alleged aggressor.
The accused, who was dressed in civilian clothes, entered the home where the alleged aggressor lived and insulted his mother when he saw that he was not there, who called the Local Police of Tías assuring that Francisco Sánchez had threatened her with a gun. The woman made her statement in the hearing, the first testimony of the nine that followed, explaining that she was afraid of the accused and of possible reprisals, as well as that she did not know that Francisco Sánchez belonged to the Civil Guard and that her son had nothing to do with all the events.
After leaving the woman's home, according to the testimonies given in the trial, the accused grabbed a neighbor in the area who was in Playa Quemada by the neck, believing that he was the perpetrator of the blows to his partner's son, and whom he "threatened with a gun that he put to his head" and insulted him shouting "fucking Moor", according to a witness to the events, a resident of the Tías Minors Internment Center who witnessed the alleged threats of the agent to the neighbor, who at no time identified himself as a Civil Guard, so he did not incur an abuse of authority.
The one who at that time was the gardener of the accused, a young man of Arab origin, declared during the trial his version of the events, where he assured that the accused was not carrying a weapon when the incident occurred, although he did grab a young man by the neck threatening him. An affirmation that coincided with the statement of another witness, a woman who was in the same house that the accused entered insulting the mother of the alleged aggressor, who changed her initial statement (in which she assured that the accused was carrying a gun) affirming that she did not get to see if the agent was armed, although assuring that the accused caused racial insults.
The ex-partner of the accused also intervened in the trial through a videoconference, in which she explained the events that occurred according to her son's version, since she was not present at the time of the incident as she was in the Civil Guard facilities, where she reported the blows that her son had received. Immediately afterwards, the son, who responds to the name of Jonathan, declared through a videoconference the events, assuring that the accused did not use a weapon at any time; a version that also coincided with the testimony of another witness, the uncle of the ex-partner of the accused agent, who assured to have witnessed the events as well.
Another of the testimonies that were collected was that of an agent of the Civil Guard, companion of the accused, who remarked that this one had not had any problem in his work. Then an agent of the Police of Tías intervened, who went to the place of the events when being alerted by the mother of the aggressed. The agent declared that he was alerted by a call in which they spoke of a gun, although not enough tests were gathered in the report that assured that the accused was carrying a weapon.
Finally, the prosecutor concluded that the use of a weapon by the accused could not be proven, although he pointed out that the acts of coercion and harassment, both to the mother and to the citizen of Arab origin, were evident and left the request in four years of prison for the accused.
