Concentration to protest the filing of the investigations opened by the Yéremi Vargas case.Ángel Medina G. / EFE
The Court of First Instance number 2 of San Bartolomé de Tirajana has decreed the reopening of the proceedings that are being followed by the disappearance of the child Yéremi Vargas, which occurred on March 10, 2007 in Vecindario (Gran Canaria) when he was seven years old.
In an order issued on September 2, it decides that it be investigated again and urges the prosecutor to allege what he considers before deciding whether to admit the new evidence requested by the child's family.
More information
Yéremi Vargas's father released with precautionary measures after being accused for the second time of sexual assault on a minor
The titular magistrate, Juan Manuel Hermo, has thus accepted the requests of the family lawyer, Marcos García-Montes, who demanded on behalf of the child's parents that the investigation of the case continue and that proceedings such as “ identification of those responsible for the, in principle, disappearance of Yéremi Vargas Suárez ”, the“ investigation of the circumstances surrounding his commission ”and the“ means of proof that they may consider necessary ”.
The lawyer Marcos García-Montes has requested in a press release the recusal of the investigating judge, who was in charge of the procedure in its last phase and was the one who ordered the dismissal for, in his opinion, lack of solid evidence against Antonio Ojeda, known as
El Rubio
, since he considers that there is evidence that there was a "loss of objective impartiality on the part of the magistrate and he asks that he be removed from the case."
Last week, the law firm that represents the family presented a letter to the Court of Instruction number 2 of San Bartolomé de Tirajana in which it requested the reopening of the case, providing new evidence and lines of investigation extracted from the statements made by the only investigated, Antonio Ojeda
El Rubio
to his partner in the prison module, to whom in a situation of trust he confessed the crime committed.
He assured, according to the firm, that "the child was blue" and that "he had to disappear."
In video, Ithaisa Suárez, the mother of Yéremi Vargas, celebrates the reopening of the case by the Canary Islands Justice.
Yéremi's mother, Itahisa Suárez, celebrated the justice's decision on Wednesday in a video broadcast on social networks.
"They have been two very hard and intense years," he assured.
14 years of disappearance
Yéremi Vargas, disappeared at the age of seven on March 10, 2007 while playing in a field near the family home in Vecindario, in Santa Lucía de Tirajana (Gran Canaria).
The only person accused of the disappearance has been Antonio Ojeda, who was released from prison on March 9, 2020 - one day before the 13th anniversary of the disappearance - after serving a five-year sentence for sexual abuse of another nine-year-old boy. years in 2012 in Vecindario, Gran Canaria.
The Court of Instruction 2 of San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Gran Canaria), issued an order in October 2017 by which it filed the summary opened in March 2007 of the child Yéremi Vargas and the consequent provisional dismissal of Ojeda.
The magistrate highlighted in his letter that there was no evidence that implicates him or any other person in the event.
Ojeda had been arrested in July 2016 as the main suspect in the illegal detention and death of the child after verifying the Civil Guard that in the Algeciras prison (Cádiz) - where he had been held for other crimes - he had allegedly bragged to other inmates of to know what had happened to Yéremi, according to one of them declared.
The agents also verified that
El Rubio
was the owner of a white car like the one seen in the place where little Vargas was lost from sight.
Abuse
It so happens that the father of Yéremi Vargas, Juan Francisco Vargas, is currently at liberty with charges after being accused of sexual abuse by his daughter, aged 13, and by the daughter of an ex-partner, also from 13 years.
On August 31, the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Guard Court decreed provisional release for Vargas, while he is being investigated for an alleged crime of sexual assault on his 13-year-old daughter.
Just three days later, the security forces re-arrested Juan Francisco Vargas after being accused of sexually assaulting another adolescent.
The following day he was released with precautionary measures after refusing to testify.