Francisco Javier Almeida knows well what it is to rape and kill someone defenseless and isolated.
He sexually assaulted a minor in 1993, was sentenced, sentenced and returned to the street.
He raped and murdered a real estate agent in 1998. He spent 20 years in prison and returned to the streets prematurely, this time to Lardero, a residential municipality of about 10,000 inhabitants attached to Logroño.
There he watched over and oversaw a children's playground until he chose little Álex, a nine-year-old neighbor from his own block, who that afternoon of October 28, 2021 was dressed up for Halloween.
He tricked him, raped him, strangled him and was caught running away with the body in his hands.
From this Monday he sits on the bench, in front of a popular jury.
The prosecutor asks for him permanent reviewable prison.
The account of facts that the prosecution has made in its qualification brief is as brief as it is harsh.
He tells how Almeida, 54, spotted Álex, who was disguised in a mahogany wig, a white tunic and his face painted.
"Under the pretext of requesting help to take care of a puppy", he convinced him to enter his house, on the third floor.
There, the defendant, "moved by the sole desire to quench his lewdness," took the child's clothes, sexually harassed him (the prosecution gives very explicit details that are omitted here) and, after "immobilizing" him on his back, "he He seized his arm around the minor's neck, squeezing him tightly with the intention of causing him to die by suffocation”, without any possibility that Álex could defend himself or ask for help.
"No longer alive,
All of this will be heard starting this Monday at the Provincial Court of Logroño, where the popular jury trial will be held for two weeks.
All those who accuse (prosecutor's office, the child's family, and the popular prosecution, exercised by the Clara Campoamor Association) request permanent reviewable prison for the crime of murder and 15 for sexual assault for Almeida, who has already spent more than half of his life.
In fact, he had arrived in Lardero after leaving the prison of El Dueso (Cantabria) in the third degree, despite the opinion against the prison technicians.
This event further triggered the indignation in Lardero over this crime, which caused deep indignation and neighborhood protests.
Had he not been in the third degree, instead of being released in April 2020, Almeida should have remained behind bars until next August, when he would have finished his 30-year sentence for raping and murdering the real estate agent.
Six men and three women, aged between 20 and 66, have been selected to judge him starting this Monday.
It will be the second time that Almeida sits before a popular jury.
Álex's family wants this to be the last time, that Almeida never get out of jail again.
And if they condemn you, it can be.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I'm already a subscriber