Several policemen with masks, at a checkpoint in Alicante.
/ Europa Press
"You are a denier, put on the mask or you will be arrested."
The head of the Court of Instruction Number 1 of Villacarrillo (Jaén) was furious when she saw Manuel García Villar enter without a mask, a 48-year-old neighbor known in the municipality for raising the denial movement against the pandemic.
After not reaching an agreement in the speedy trial held in recent days, Manuel will sit on the bench of the Criminal Court number 3 of Jaén next Tuesday, November 24, accused of two crimes of disobedience.
The Prosecutor's Office asks for him a year in prison in which it will be one of the first criminal trials held in Spain for the refusal to wear a mask.
The Prosecutor's Office claims for García six months in prison for each of the two crimes of serious disobedience to the agents of the authority that are accused of him.
The first of them is linked to the six previous complaints that he received from the Villacarrillo Local Police officers for his repeated refusal to wear a mask.
"He would walk around town in a defiant attitude and tell us that he didn't feel like putting on the protection," says Deputy Inspector Francisco Martínez.
The Local Police processed up to six administrative complaints against García before the Delegation of Health and Families of the Junta de Andalucía.
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The second crime has to do with the incident carried out by the accused in the Villacarrillo Court when he was summoned to a speedy trial.
"The judge was alarmed when she saw him enter without a mask and called several Civil Guard agents to arrest him if he persisted in his attitude," says his public defender, Francisco León Valenzuela.
The defense lawyer admits that García shares the thesis of the denial movement although he has not participated in demonstrations
García's defense asks for his acquittal on the basis of the respiratory problems he suffers.
"He has conditions in the nasal septum and severe obesity that makes him drown when he walks and makes it difficult for him to do his most basic tasks," explains the lawyer, adding that his client had already made an appointment at his health center. municipality so that they made him a receipt that excused him from wearing a mask.
León demands "a bit of humanity" from the Prosecutor's Office to withdraw penalties that he understands as "disproportionate".
"The requested sentence is like killing flies with cannon shots," he snaps.
The deputy inspector of the Villacarillo Local Police does not think the same, for whom the sanctions that are asked of García "have above all an exemplary character."
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the agents of this population of just over 10,000 inhabitants have imposed fifty sanctions on pedestrians who did not wear a mask.
And from now on, the deputy inspector adds, they are also considering charging crimes against public health to those who breach the quarantine.
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Villacarrillo, with 1,118.8 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days, is among the 15 Jaén municipalities with the highest incidence in the province, according to data provided by the Institute of Statistics and Cartography of the Junta de Andalucía.
In Jaén there is another neighbor immersed in a criminal process that could also lead him to the dock.
As reported by the Government Sub-delegation, he is charged with a crime of reckless injury for having infected his family for not having told them he was positive.
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