On May 3, 2018, a man of Bolivian origin appeared at the offices of the Canals Local Police to denounce that he had been kidnapped, gagged, handcuffed and threatened with a revolver by two people of Italian nationality 35 and 52 years who resided in the town.
The following day, the court of investigation nº1 of Xàtiva authorized entry and search in a country house in Canals and in a house in the neighboring town of Torrella. The Civil Guard found a Winchester rifle, a .38 caliber Astra revolver, a large machete and 377 rounds of ammunition, in addition to a significant amount of cocaine, marijuana, and hashish.
Four years and eight months later, the Supreme Court has raised to firm the sentence that condemns the inhabitant of both properties to four years in prison for a crime against public health and another two years in prison for illegal possession of weaponstogether with the payment of a fine of 50,000 euros.
Instead, both the defendant and another detainee as a result of the complaint by the Bolivian citizen were left acquitted of the crimes of illegal detention, threats and injuryIt is after the trial failed to prove that they both kidnapped him -supposedly for stealing a jewel from them- and then released him at the l’Alcúdia de Crespins train station under death threats, as the alleged victim told the agents. Some facts for which the narco now convicted He was deprived of liberty for almost a year and a half.
The Provincial Court of Valencia initially imposed a sentence of 5 years in prison and a fine of 80,000 euros for the drug that was intervened in the records of their homes -with a market price of 39,410 euros-, applying the aggravating factor for recidivism since the defendant had previously been sentenced in 2008 in Girona to another three years in prison for trafficking “soft” drugs. The ‘narco’ appealed the sentence for the events of Canals and the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV) reduced the sentence for the crime against public health from five to four years and reduced the fine from 80,000 to 50,000 euros, rule out the aggravating circumstance of recidivism.
Appeal dismissed
In his appeal before the Supreme Court, the defendant’s defense tried toand invalidate the registration of one of the buildings located in an area of Canals arguing that it did not belong to him and that it was not initially included in the judicial authorization obtained by the Civil Guard. There were two buildings, one next to the other, and separated by a pool. Public officials reviewed both upon reaching the conclusion that it was a housing unit used by the defendant and not from two different dwellings.
A correct assessment in the opinion of the Supreme Court magistrates, who ratify the legality of all the searches carried out. The second construction lacked the condition of domicile since inside it there were hardly any belongings of an inhabited house, which leads the court to rule out a violation of the right to home inviolability.
Within the framework of the Parral Operation, the agents found more than 200 marijuana plants, in addition to 3,765 grams of marijuana and 219 grams of cocaine with a purity between 67% and 88%. Access to the WhatsApp conversations of the detainee’s seized cell phone yielded more evidence about the transactions of narcotic substances that he carried out. The evidence concluded that the appellant possessed the whole of the plot with the two Canals buildings. The defense also attributed ownership of the cocaine and a revolver to a third party, but the Supreme Court does not accept any of its arguments and imposes on the convicted person the legal costs caused by his last resort.
