The young man who denounced a homophobic aggression in Madrid confesses that they did not attack him hooded: "It was consented"

The rainbow flag flies at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid in the protests against the brutal murder of the young Samuel Luiz in A Coruña.Bernat Armangue / AP

The pieces of the puzzle did not fit. The cameras in the area, reviewed by the police, had not registered "anything" that had to do with the events reported by the alleged victim: that he was attacked by eight individuals with white hoods on his website, last Sunday morning in the central Madrid neighborhood of Malasaña, and that right there, in the hallway, they engraved the word "fag" on his buttocks at knife point after insulting him, and they left. Neither did the neighbors questioned by the agents "hear or see anything," despite the fact that everything allegedly happened in broad daylight. Not even the owner of the store where the victim claimed to have been, remembered having seen him. Not a single witness to the brutal assault. Investigators at the downtown police station, where the 20-year-old made the complaint,and those of the Madrid Provincial Information Brigade tried to verify the testimony initially offered by the victim without success. This Wednesday, in a second "more leisurely" statement, the young man has changed his version: "He was consented, at the house of another person with whom he had a sexual relationship," he admitted to the police. He claims that he lied to support his current "new partner."

The case has unleashed a wave of reactions. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, condemned the "homophobic attack" on his Twitter account and urgently convened the Commission against hate crimes this Friday. The Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, protested against homophobia and drew attention to the succession of cases registered in recent months and the dangerousness of homophobic speeches. The LGTB associations called protest demonstrations, one for this very night. However, the second statement from the whistleblower leaves investigators without a case and he could be charged with perjury.

The Ministry of the Interior sent a clarifying message this afternoon: “In the afternoon today, and thanks to the work of the National Police, the young man who denounced an attack on Sunday in the Malasaña neighborhood of Madrid has decided to rectify his initial statement and has stated that the injuries initially reported were consensual. This declaration is produced without prejudice to the development of the investigations and the judicial procedure ”.

From the beginning of the investigation, the agents were a little scared because, from the outset, the young man did not want to report and was "dragged" by his current partner to the police station. His partner assured the agents that he had told him the same thing that he had told them after arriving home injured that morning, as well as his roommate, who also confirmed it. But it was not until 5:00 p.m. on that same Sunday that they left for the Centro police station. On the way they ran into a police patrol car, they arrested him and the alleged victim told the officers what had supposedly happened to him, for which they invited him to file a complaint immediately.

The agents then began an investigation that did not end up confirming the victim's version. The Hate Crimes Prosecutor's Office and agents of the corresponding unit of the Madrid Provincial Information Brigade joined the investigations, without finding any evidence to confirm the facts denounced. Neither suspects, nor witnesses, nor possible detainees, nor indications, not even the clothes he was wearing at the time of the alleged attack could be examined, since he said that "he had washed both the pants and the shirt." In view of having solely and exclusively his testimony, the investigators decided to take a second statement from him, in which he ended up confessing that he lied.

The LGTBI collective that had organized a demonstration this Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Movimiento Marika Madrid, has announced that it maintains the call. “Do you know why”, they say in a statement on Instagram: “Because in recent days there have also been attacks in Toledo, Melilla, Castellón and Vitoria. Because they killed Samuel for being a fag. Because

who are reading this have had to suffer violence, harassment, fear and the danger of death ”.

Also the Collective of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals of Madrid (COGAM) maintains its call for this Saturday in Sol. looked like. But the reality is that the victims are there, they occur every day, everywhere. And that is why it makes sense to stay focused ”, Carmen García de Merlo, president of COGAM, adds to the telephone, reports

“We keep it [the convocation] to protest because Madrid has two laws [a law on trans people and a generic law of the LGTBI collective, approved in 2016] that are not complied with. And because we cannot ignore the victims. Tomorrow we can be any of us ”.

Ignacio Paredero, secretary of Organization of the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Trans and Bisexuals (FELGTB), agrees: “The increase in cases is still there even though that of Malasaña is false. That does not erase the number of crimes that there are, nor those that have also happened throughout these days. Cases like this of course hurt us. There are going to be people who try to take advantage to say that hate crimes are not true, but there has been a growth in cases and since the murder of Samuel Luiz [the young man murdered in A Coruña in July shouting "fag"] there is fear In the collective".

The statistics of the Ministry of the Interior show that, in the first six months of this year, the Police and Civil Guard received 610 complaints for offenses related to hate crimes, 9.3% more than in the same period in 2019, when they were counted 558 events, a figure that so far marked the maximum since specific statistics on hate crimes began in 2014. This was said at the end of July by the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, in the presentation of the strategy of the National Office against Hate Crimes for the next triennium. A recent Interior survey indicates that only one in 10 people who suffer a hate crime report it to the Police. In 2020, 1,401 complaints of hate crimes were counted, 17.9% less than in 2019, when 1,706 cases were known.These crimes have increased almost continuously year after year since 2003. In the Interior, they partly blamed the pandemic for the decline in 2020 compared to 2019.

José María Núñez Blanco, president of the Triángulo Foundation, founded in 1996 to achieve equal political and social rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans people, affirms: “The data is overwhelming. A false report does not mean that there are thousands that are real. This hurts us a lot. Due to the nature of the denounced act and the apparent brutality, it had taken on a lot of relevance ”, he admits. But he adds that there is an increase in cases "both in cities and towns" and that, among the reasons, "is the increase in hate speech."