The magistrates accept that he suffered “moral and psychological damage” but reject the claim of more than 700,000 euros
MADRID, 19 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The National Court has recognized the right to receive 5,000 euros to a man for spending 164 days in preventive detention until he was acquitted in a trial in which he was accused of appearing at the workplace of a protected witness who had to testify at the hearing against two minors accused of causing the death of Javier Romero Taboada, alias ‘Jimmy’, the Deportivo de La Coruña fan who died in a fight with Atlético de Madrid fans.
After being acquitted in 2016, the man filed a claim for 712,303 euros with the Ministry of Justice for the time spent in prison, where he was between January 23 and July 4, 2016, accused of an alleged crime of obstruction of the justice, as stated in a judgment of the Contentious Chamber of April 30 and to which Europa Press has had access.
He alleged that during those almost six months, in addition to curtailing his freedom, the situation of provisional prison caused damage to his health and that of his family, as well as economic damage to his work. The man, a taxi driver, could not drive his car and could not attend the communion and school graduation of his two children.
In his claim, the man pointed out that the livelihood of his family was the activity of the taxi, “property of his that no other person in the family” was “authorized to drive, so he had to cease the activity of the same”, indicates the magistrate Lucía Acín.
Justice denied in March 2019 his request for patrimonial responsibility for damages derived from preventive detention and a few months later the man appealed before the Contentious Court.
Of the more than half a million euros claimed, the appellant requested 328,000 euros, two thousand for each of the 164 days he spent behind bars, while the rest of the money was claimed to pay his lawyer and for psychological damage to both him and To his family.
The Court rejects the argument of “lost profits” of not having been able to work with the taxi because the claimant did not provide “any” document that demonstrates income as a taxi driver “neither before nor after the period he remained in prison,” the sentence states.
Even so, the magistrates admit as “obvious” that the man suffered damage to his image due to the “media impact” of the case, although they stress that this point “is not attributable to the Administration of Justice.”
In short, the Contentious Chamber partially upholds the appeal against Justice’s refusal to compensate him with 5,000 euros based on the amounts established by the Supreme Court, recognizing as the “only” reason the “moral and psychological damage that any deprivation of freedom entails for those who have suffered it and that includes the damage caused by the rupture with the family environment (in this case, the impossibility of attending celebrations with the children), anguish, anxiety, insecurity, restlessness, frustration, annoyance or irritation”, noted in a health center report.
The Court has thus decided to annul the resolution of the Ministry directed by Pilar Llop to recognize the “damages” caused.
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