The accused of killing a man with a machete in Verges in the early hours of August 13, 2022 testified this Tuesday before the popular jury that that night he was very drunk and that he had no intention of harming the victim. The defendant, who only answered questions from his defense, maintained that he returned armed to the exterior of Mas Pi to wait for the Mossos d'Esquadra and report an assault.
The account of the accused before the jury
As he explained, he started drinking in another establishment in Verges from three in the afternoon and also consumed a gram of cocaine. He stated that he remained there until ten or eleven at night, when the person in charge of the place told him to go home because he had already drunk enough.
The accused stated that afterwards he waited outside because they were supposed to bring him another gram, he did a couple of lines and went to Mas Pi, located a few meters away. There, according to his version, a man approached him from behind and told him to leave because he was very drunk. He responded by pushing him and, immediately afterwards, five people jumped on him, hit him and expelled him from the premises.
Always according to his statement, upon leaving he fell to the ground again and received more blows. Then he went home, took a machete and returned to the outside of the establishment. He said he stayed on the other side of the sidewalk and that called four times 112 with the intention of waiting for the arrival of the Mossos and reporting that he had been assaulted without reason.
The deadly aggression and the arrest
The defendant stated that around two thirty in the morning, a client he didn't know, a 44-year-old resident of Bordils, left the premises. According to his version, he told him to leave while making a movement with the machete and that, by bad luck, he stabbed him in the neck. During the interrogation he insisted that he had no intention of harming him.
His lawyer referred to videos recorded by workers and clients of Mas Pi in which he is seen delivering two blows with the machete. The accused stated that he only remembers having made the gesture and that his memory is affected by the consumption of alcohol and cocaine.
After seeing the victim bleeding, he went home. On the way, according to what he declared, he threw the machete into a planter. The Mossos d'Esquadra arrested him there around four in the morning.
The emergency services transferred the injured person to Trueta hospital in Girona in critical condition. He died at 6:45 p.m. on August 13, 2022. The forensic medical examination located two large wounds of 16 and 12.5 centimeters on the neck and on the shoulder.
Expert Clash on His Mental State
In this Tuesday afternoon's session, the forensic experts who prepared the report on the defendant's culpability and the experts for the private prosecution also testified. The doctors detailed that the accused has an antisocial personality disorder detected since he was young and that he has not adhered to any treatment in the mental health network.
According to the forensic experts, that disorder makes him a suspicious, hostile, and distrustful person and affected his volitional capacity at the time of the events, although he maintained cognitive capacity. The experts for the private prosecution disagreed and maintained that he had his faculties preserved.
Both expert reports agreed that it has not been possible to scientifically prove if the defendant was drunk or drugged, since no urine or blood samples were taken from him.
Sentence requests and upcoming sessions
The Prosecutor's Office initially accuses the defendant of a crime of homicide with the aggravating circumstance of abuse of superiority and requests 14 years and 11 months in prison. The private prosecution raises the request to 20 years considering that it was a murder.
The defense argues that it is a homicide with mitigating circumstances because the accused was affected by alcohol consumption, added to the mental disorder, and acted in a state of obfuscation.
The trial will continue this Wednesday with the conclusion proceedings and the reports. Afterwards, the presiding magistrate will hand over the object of the verdict to the popular jury so that it may retire to deliberate.