The Supreme Court confirms the sentence of a man who stole baptism and marriage certificates from his ancestors to rise in the Order of Malta

The Supreme Court has confirmed the two-year prison sentence of a man for destroying several books from the 18th and 19th centuries to falsify his lineage before the Order of Malta and thus achieve promotion to the rank of Knight of Honor and Devotion.

The desire to erase the trace of his ancestors who did not suit him led the condemned man to steal a book from the Diocesan Historical Archive of Teruel - which he later returned under secrecy of confession in a parish in Madrid - and to "tear out of the books and make the books disappear." corresponding folios” of the baptism and marriage certificates of a great-great-grandfather, from 1839, and a fourth grandfather, from 1798, as well as the marriage certificates of some fourth grandparents, in 1835, and of their fifth grandparents, in 1775.

The man was convicted of a crime against historical heritage by the Single Criminal Court of Teruel.

The decision, ratified by the Provincial Court, has also received the endorsement of the Supreme Court, which has rejected all the grounds against it.

The convicted person also has to pay 12,000 euros to the diocesan Historical Archive for the damage he caused to the books.

During the trial, it was proven, according to the Supreme Court ruling, that the convicted person went to the Diocesan Historical Archive of Teruel between the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014 with the intention of obtaining those baptism and marriage certificates.

The documents were part of the

Quinque Libri

of Barrachina and those of Villarejo de los Olmos, both in the province of Teruel.

With this, the convicted man intended to alter his lineage before the Order of Malta and promote himself to Knight of Honor and Devotion, according to the report of the sentence, made public this Friday in a statement from the Judiciary.

The court also considered it proven that the candidate to be a Knight of Honor in the Order of Malta “did not hesitate to tear out the books and make the corresponding pages disappear” to avoid being discovered by the prosecutor of the Order of Malta who was verifying the veracity of the lineage of which he boasted.

It was not until 2017 when, according to the investigation, it was discovered that Book II of the Sacramental Departures of the Barrachina Parish, which collected all the acts recorded in the local church between 1693 and 1774, was missing, and the missing pages were torn off.

At the end of May, a person went to the Diocesan Archive of Teruel on behalf of the Order of Malta to check whether the family tree of the candidate for promotion was authentic.

When he did not find the documents, he alerted the director.

The complaint for the theft was formalized on August 10, the middle of summer.

Delivery in confession

The stolen book returned to the archive just two weeks later.

The director notified the Civil Guard that it had arrived in a package from a parish in Madrid along with a note: "Mr. Vicar, I am sending you this book delivered by a person in confession."

The court considers it proven that the person who delivered the book was the accused.

The convicted person, identified with the initials ODAP, was arrested in Madrid in April 2018. The Civil Guard operation, named Malta Teruel, had a second delivery, in which two other people related to the theft of the diocesan archive were arrested. from Teruel.

The resolution that was made public this Friday only speaks of the condemnation of the direct beneficiary of the promotion of the Maltese Cross, since he is the one who had appealed.

The other two people arrested were being investigated for stealing 16 sheets of documents from the 18th and 19th centuries from the Provincial Historical Archive of Zaragoza.

The Order of Malta is an organization of the Catholic Church made up of permanent members, knights and ladies of the Order of Malta, many related to European nobility.

The convicted man, married to a German princess, was expelled from the organization, as reported in 2021 by the local newspaper

El Levante,

so he finally did not achieve his long-awaited promotion to Knight of Honor and Devotion.

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