The two skippers and the "collector" of the boat that sank on December 13, 2012 in the Los Ancones area, in Teguise, have pleaded guilty this Thursday to the crime against the rights of foreign citizens of which they were accused, according to the Efe Agency. Thus, Jamaal Zhouani, the main skipper, has accepted a sentence of 3 years and 6 months in prison, while Aziz Yazine, the other skipper, and Aziz Zaroual, the collector of the money that immigrants had to pay to access the cayuco, have accepted the sentence of 3 years and 3 months in prison.
The trial was scheduled for this Thursday in the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas. At the beginning of the hearing, via videoconference, the three defendants, all of Moroccan nationality, have declared their agreement with the Prosecutor's accusation. In this way, their sentences are significantly reduced, especially for Jamaal Zhouani, for whom the Public Prosecutor's Office requested 10 years in prison in his indictment. In the case of the other two defendants, the prosecutor had asked for 8 years in prison for them. The three have been in provisional prison since January 19, 2013.
The tragic sinking of that boat off the coast of Lanzarote, in which 25 people were traveling, resulted in one deceased immigrant and seven others missing, after the cayuco collided with the patrol boat of the Civil Guard "El Cabaleiro". The Prosecutor's Office indictment pointed to Jamaal Zhouani as the "main skipper of the boat", pointing out that upon realizing that the patrol boat was following them and after "having carried out a maneuver that could have facilitated the boarding" of the Civil Guard, he hid among the other occupants of the cayuco, leaving the boat "without government". Regarding the amounts that immigrants had to pay to have access to the boat, and that Aziz Zaroual was in charge of collecting, the Prosecutor's Office estimated them between 400 and 500 euros.
This trial only elucidated the involvement of the three defendants and not the circumstances in which the collision with the patrol boat occurred, which are being investigated and will be judged in a separate piece.
