Avunculicide accused stands trial

The Provincial Court of Almería will continue to hear evidence today in a trial that started on Wednesday of a 35-year-old man accused of murdering his uncle-in-law after beating him at kilometre 769 of the A-7 highway (Almería), where he left him abandoned, and who later died after being transferred to a hospital.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office is asking for 23 years in prison for the accused for an alleged crime of murder in a trial that is scheduled to hold four sessions that began with the accused’s statement.

In its brief, the Prosecutor’s Office maintains that the accused was traveling aboard a vehicle on August 21, 2021, in the company of his romantic partner’s uncle on the motorway when he stopped at the El Toyo-Cabo de Gata exit and pulled him out of the car onto the hard shoulder “with the intention of causing his death.”

Thus, he points out that while the accused was standing “punching and kicking him numerous times in different areas of the body”, the victim was lying on the ground “face up and motionless on the asphalt.” In this way, he suffered numerous injuries and fractures mainly to the head, face and ribs, among others.

The attack would have produced a “life-threatening” wound in the victim as the colon ruptured, which led the man to lose consciousness. The traumatic and hypovolemic shock subsequently led to the death of the victim, who had a minor daughter for whom the Prosecutor’s Office is requesting compensation of 120,000 euro.

The images of the attack, which emerged after being captured by a witness, facilitated the police investigation that determined that the victim, the accused and his romantic partner had spent the entire night from Friday to Saturday in a local drinking venue in Níjar (Almería), and at one point during the night the deceased would have reproached his nephew-in-law for “spending a lot of money on slot machines.”

Thus, around 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, they left the deceased’s niece at her mother’s house and they both left again. The events later took place on the motorway, around 4:00 p.m., which could be witnessed by several passersby who alerted the emergency services.

A call alerted that there was a vehicle stopped on the hard shoulder and that a man was kicking and punching another man, especially in the head, who was lying motionless on the ground, so the aggressor fled in the vehicle and left the body on the hard shoulder.

After the events, the now accused had returned to the house hours later, where he had left his romantic partner to pick her up. Given the blood stains that he showed on his clothing, he alleged that the uncle “had hit him.”

In parallel, the emergency services took the victim to the Torrecárdenas University Hospital, where he was admitted in critical condition. Finally, he died at around 4:26 p.m. on Saturday as a result of the trauma suffered.

The alleged aggressor’s vehicle was later located, establishing a surveillance device in the vicinity of where it was located, which ended with the arrest of the alleged perpetrator.