The defendant accused of beating to death a homeless man who lived with him in a squat in Arrecife, Lanzarote, has been found guilty of murder, according to the verdict read by the jury deliberating on the case.
The jury has understood that the defendant, Manuel Antonio I.L. is guilty of the murder of Enrique Aguilar Hinojosa, considering the aggravating circumstance that he intentionally hit the victim while he was sleeping to prevent him from defending himself.
Given the jury's verdict, the Public Prosecutor's Office has requested the maximum possible penalty, that is, 17 years and six months for the defendant, while the defense attorney has requested the minimum penalty due to the mitigating circumstance of intoxication when committing the crime.
The jury made the decision by majority and emphasized the defendant's "constant contradictions", the fact that a witness directly involves him by confessing that "he had killed him" and also considers it proven that the defendant, after hitting the victim to death, was absent from the house for between thirty-five and forty minutes, time they consider sufficient to dispose of the murder weapon.
CONTRADICTIONS
Last Monday, the trial began with a jury in which Manuel Antonio I.L. was accused of beating to death a homeless man with whom he shared a squat in Arrecife, Lanzarote, along with three other people, who have testified as witnesses. The Public Prosecutor's Office is asking for 18 years in prison, although now it must be the judge who determines the corresponding sentence.
At first, the defendant denied the facts with which he is charged, maintaining that the victim, Enrique A.H., who died from a cranial fracture caused by a strong blow, fell down the stairs of the house in which they lived, as it was in a dilapidated state.
Manuel Antonio I.L. argued that when he arrived home after having gone "to collect cigarette butts on the street", he found Enrique A.H. dead on the stairs in a pool of blood. Furthermore, although the other three people who lived in the house, José Luis Quintana, 'El Guindilla'; Juan Carlos Moreira; and Juan Indalecio Rivero, assured that they all got along well and that there were no arguments, the defendant stated that they got along badly because the deceased was "a fake and a ruin".
The three witnesses and occupants of the house, in a dilapidated state, who lived with the victim and the defendant, stated that in the upper part of the house, where Manuel Antonio I.L. and Enrique A.H. slept, there was a very large wooden mallet that disappeared after the incident and the Police have not been able to find.
Thus, José Luis Quintana said in a previous statement to the Police that the defendant asked him for help to lower the body from the room in which he had supposedly hit him, saying: "Come on, come on, I've killed him". The other two witnesses also helped the defendant to remove the body from the house, although they did not hear Manuel Antonio I.L. say that he had killed him but that he had fallen, so they took him out of the house, presumably so that when the ambulance came they would help him faster.
BACKGROUND
The inspector of the Judicial Police who investigated the case explained on the second day of the trial that the defendant, Manuel Antonio I.L., had a criminal record, including for a fact very similar to this one that took place in La Rocar.
Specifically, the defendant had a record for sexual assault at the time he lived in Galicia, a crime of robbery with force for having hit a person to steal money in Puerto del Rosario and another in Lanzarote for robbery with violence.
The fact that is most striking is a crime in which the defendant was involved when he lived in La Rocar (Lanzarote) because an elderly person who lived next to Manuel Antonio I.L.'s shack was murdered by receiving a blow and was subsequently doused with gasoline.
In this case, as in the one surrounding the death of Enrique A.H., he was an elderly person, the defendant was near him and was the one who called the Police and the health services.
ACN Press
