During the investigation of the 'wheelie' video, the defendants "deleted evidence." This has been stated by one of the local police officers from Arrecife who testified this Wednesday in the trial, who recalled, for example, that the original video was deleted. This officer was convinced that the two defendants had agreed to record the images and has been detailing the evidence in the police report that he believes demonstrates that there was "complicity" between the driver of the car from which the images were taken and the motorcyclist who appears in them doing the 'wheelie'. The prosecutor also believes this, and she has maintained her request for 2 years in prison, highlighting in her conclusions that the Police have made it "crystal clear".
In Wednesday's hearing, the two defendants testified, and the car's co-pilot, who is the driver's cousin and recorded the video, a taxi driver whose vehicle appeared in the images, and two Local Police officers who intervened in the investigation also attended as witnesses. The investigations carried out by the officers to determine the speed at which the two vehicles were traveling and the route they took while performing those "dangerous" maneuvers is one of the keys to the Prosecutor's argument. Social networks also play an important role in the case, as the video was spread through them; and the frames from the original video.
In this regard, the police officer was asked during his statement about the photograph that the defendant accused of driving the motorcycle put on his Whatsapp profile. It is specifically the frame from the video in which the motorcyclist is seen driving on one wheel. Manuel Salces claims that the photo was "passed to him through a group" on Whatsapp. The Police, however, do not believe that he accessed the image in that way. The officer explained that this messaging application "automatically lowers the quality" of videos when sending them between users. Thus, he argued that the fact that the defendant's profile picture had a higher quality "can only imply that Manu had access to the original video or a capture of that video". The defendant, however, denied that the image had reached him through the car's driver, Oriol Suárez, or his cousin, who was the co-pilot.
"Deleting evidence"
The officer also explained that the original video "was deleted". The author of that video himself, who testified as a witness, explained that he deleted it from his phone. The Police, however, reproach him for going to police headquarters "with the mobile, but without the SD card". He, for his part, claims that his phone "did not have" a memory card. He also said that, when the Police called him to ask about that video in which his cousin and the motorcyclist appear, they told him to "give them the mobile or they would take it from me by force".
The co-pilot also claimed that he deleted the video "on the 26th or 27th" of October. It was precisely those days when the video was spread on networks and the news that the Police were investigating a video for reckless driving became known through the media. The police report records this fact and assures that the video "was deleted upon seeing the repercussion" it was acquiring. "When the facts begin to have social repercussions is when they begin to delete evidence", the officer stated when asked about that statement in the police report.
Something that also disappeared while the police investigation was underway was Manuel Salces' Facebook account. When asked by the Prosecutor's Office, the defendant himself acknowledged that he "had" an account on that social network "on that date". According to him, he has since deleted it and "now he no longer" has it.
"I got nervous seeing the recklessness they were committing"
For the Local Police and the Prosecutor's Office, the complicity between both defendants is also proven by the statement of the taxi driver, who was driving on the road when the motorcycle was doing the wheelie and who has corroborated the route that the two vehicles took "together". The statement of that witness was precisely one of the most tense moments of the hearing. The taxi driver has responded on several occasions that what they were asking her she had already told the Police and saying that she did not see "why" she had to continue answering.
Her attitude has caused the judge to have to ask her on several occasions not to "interrupt" him and, even, he has reminded her twice that she was obliged to answer and to do so "truthfully" or, otherwise, she would face a crime of obstruction of justice. Faced with that warning, the witness has responded, although she has begun doing so vaguely for the prosecutor, who has even said to her: "either you lied to the Police or you are lying now". The taxi driver has then refined her answers, corroborating that she saw how the vehicles were going "together to the new roundabout before the dock (of Los Mármoles)" and then returning to the highway.
Asked about that route, the driver of the car and the co-pilot have agreed with the witness: they entered Playa Honda on that road, reached the Circunvalación, exited at the last roundabout before Costa Teguise (the one at the entrance to Los Mármoles) and then turned around at the roundabout and rejoined the highway. For both the Police and the prosecutor, this proves that they were together and had planned the route in advance to record Salces doing that maneuver.
The taxi driver has also acknowledged that the motorcyclist's maneuver made her "nervous", "because if he falls I can run him over". Admitting that it was a "complicated situation", emphasizing that she was carrying "customers" and also a bus was circulating behind, the taxi driver has pointed out that she was "afraid" to see the "recklessness that the motorcyclist was committing", although she has stated that she was not afraid of the car.
The "connivance" and the "evident danger" are "accredited"
For the prosecutor, with all this, it has been "accredited" that there was "connivance" between the two defendants. In her conclusions, she has also stressed that the maneuvers of the motorcyclist and the driver posed an "evident" danger. In addition, she has stressed that speed is only one "element" of the recklessness that she believes they committed. She has also clarified that the danger does not reside in whether "there has been an accident or not", "the situation of danger already exists for doing that maneuver".
The defenses have argued, on the contrary, that there was no such recklessness and that the danger was not "manifest". "There was no concrete risk to the lives of people and co-authorship is not proven by the mere fact of driving next to someone", said Suárez's lawyer. The lawyer believes that the driver can only be charged with speeding and considers that, in any case, it should be considered an "administrative offense" and not a criminal one. Salces' lawyer also agrees with that argument, who has stressed that for the "danger to be manifest" there must be an "imminent harmful result".
Manuel Salces' lawyer has especially insisted that his client "was not driving the motorcycle". "He was never identified by his face or by the license plate, he has presented a work certificate stating that he was working. Evidence is presented as criminal and they are not", he said, to conclude that identifying his client is "incredible". Thus, he has requested the "total acquittal" of Salces. The trial has been adjourned for sentencing after those conclusions.