The investigating judge of the Court of First Instance number 4 of Lleida has ordered to reopen the investigation for the murder of Isaac Martínez, a crime committed in the Cappont neighborhood on November 9, 2006. The resolution comes after granting the petition presented by the family's lawyer, Pau Simarro, when less than eight months remain for 20 years to pass since the events, the period in which the case prescribes.
Isaac Martínez was 26 years old when he was murdered early in the morning, just as he was leaving a parking lot in his car to go to work. The shooting occurred at the exit of a parking lot on Riu Ter street, in Cappont, one of the key points of a case that is now being reactivated judicially.
New proceeding on the cartridges found at the scene
The magistrate has agreed to issue an official letter to the General Directorate of Police and Civil Guard so that its forensics service analyzes a technical aspect that may be relevant. Specifically, she asks to determine if the presence of tin particles in the primer of the cartridges found at the crime scene, particles that did not appear on J.R.M.'s clothing, makes it incompatible for him to have used a firearm that day or if he could have used it.
The resolution also demands that it be clarified if it is possible, and even frequent, that in the primer of ammunition cartridges of weapons similar to that used in the assassination there exist particles of metals like tin that do not necessarily have to be present in the content of the gunpowder stored in the cartridge to produce the deflagration when struck.
A suspect and an unsolved crime
J.R.M. was investigated at the time as a possible perpetrator of the shooting. The reopening does not alter the presumption of innocence and now focuses on a new expert verification linked to the ballistic remains collected after the murder.
The perpetrator of the crime acted hooded. He was dressed in black, with a balaclava and a reflective vest. He shot the victim seven times, first two shots from the rear of the car and then five from the side, when Isaac Martínez was trying to merge into traffic upon leaving the parking lot.
The judicial countdown
The judicial decision arrives at a particularly sensitive moment for the case. The murder is less than eight months away from reaching 20 years since its commission, the temporal limit of prescription. That circumstance places the new expert proceeding at the center of an investigation that had been years without decisive advances.
With this reopening, the court seeks to clarify if the metallic traces detected in the cartridges can fit or not with the eventual use of a weapon by the investigated party on that November morning of 2006, in a crime that remains unresolved in Lleida almost two decades later.