The Prosecutor's Office has decided to increase the prison sentence it is seeking for the man on trial at the Provincial Court of Pontevedra to 17 years, accused of attempted murder for the assault on his ex-partner in Vigo with a homemade spear.
In its final report before the fourth section, the public ministry has revised its conclusions and has raised the sentence request, considering it proven that on June 15, 2025, the defendant appeared at his ex-wife's home, with whom he had a 38-year relationship, carrying a crowbar and a type of homemade spear, with the intention of ending her life.
According to the Prosecutor, the accused attacked her on repeated occasions, directing blows to vital areas such as the abdomen and head, until the woman fell to the ground unconscious, with no possibility of defending herself.
The public ministry requests that the aggravating factors of recidivism—the defendant has already been convicted of two other homicides—, kinship, and gender be applied. In addition to the prison sentence, it asks that he be prohibited from approaching or communicating with his ex-partner for an additional 9 years to the sentence and that he compensate her with 3,891 euros for the injuries and another 4,000 euros for moral damages.
The private prosecution maintains the same legal classification and the same aggravating factors, although it seeks 15 years in prison and financial compensation of 24,000 euros. In her statement, the victim's lawyer highlighted the "force and brutality" of the assault and emphasized that "the defendant's capacity to kill is already proven," also underlining that he himself "boasts that he can do it."
The lawyer recalled that the officer who made the arrest, after a struggle in which the defendant even attacked him with the spear, described the incident as "a fight to the death." She also stressed that he "did not apologize and showed a complete lack of remorse."
Expulsion of the Defendant and Final Statement
On the second and final day of the trial, the defendant was reprimanded on several occasions by the president of the court for interrupting an officer testifying as a witness, gesturing and protesting, and for cutting off the prosecution's lawyer's statement while she was presenting her final report.
After several warnings, the judge ordered his expulsion from the courtroom. The defendant only returned to exercise his right to the last word.
At that moment, he reiterated his version of events and again denied any aggression, assuring that he had done "nothing" to his ex-wife and that he had only gone to the home to warn her that he intended to report her for an alleged theft of 700 euros.
"I am innocent. I already paid for what I did, but I did that. This, no, in this she self-harmed to incriminate me," he stated, adding: "In almost 40 years I didn't touch a hair on her head, nor did I even insult her. I did not do such a thing, nor did I erase the fingerprints (of the weapon)."
Request for acquittal by the defense
The defense has requested acquittal, maintaining that the intent to kill has not been proven. In their opinion, in any case, the facts would fit a crime of injury, since the result of the alleged attack was "of little severity."
The lawyer has pointed out that the hypothesis that the victim self-harmed "cannot be excluded" and has defended that the accused "had no intention of killing" and that, if the contrary were understood, the mitigating circumstance of "voluntary withdrawal" should be applied.
Therefore, he has asked that he be declared not guilty or, alternatively, that he be convicted only of injury or, at most, of homicide, but without aggravating factors. Likewise, he has claimed that the mitigating circumstance of intoxication be considered, considering that the accused had consumed alcohol and medication and suffers from an addiction.