The TS reduces the sentence to pawns of a ship with 20 tons of hashish because it cannot be the same as that of the captain

Corrects the AN but confirms that they are guilty, understanding that they participated voluntarily and assumed the consequences

MADRID, 10 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Supreme Court (TS) has reduced from 4 to 3 years and one month the prison sentence that the National Court (AN) had agreed for three of the four crew members of the fishing boat 'Odyssey 227', intercepted with 20 tons of hashish, since that he considers it disproportionate that the captain be punished the same as the rest.

Captained by an Italian, the ship was boarded by the Spanish Security Forces in June 2021 in international waters and 30 miles from the Canary Island of Fuerteventura.

In a sentence to which Europa Press has had access, the TS appreciates an "evident lack of proportionality" between the sentences imposed on the captain of the ship and his companions, although they are all punished for a crime of drug trafficking that does not cause serious damage to health, in the modality of extreme gravity.

The National Court considered that this extreme seriousness implied that the sentences be equalized with that of the captain, since the Supreme Court has established that this threshold is reached if the hashish exceeds 2,500 kilos and in this case it is eight times more.

For the captain, the Criminal Chamber of the AN decreed 4 years in prison, while it imposed one less on the other three crew members, of Senegalese origin. But the Prosecutor's Office appealed the sentence and the AN Appeals Chamber raised the sentence for the laborers to 4 years.

"A similar magnitude cannot be imposed on whoever leads and skippers the boat than on those who are mere pawns in the criminal network," the high court has now ruled.

In this sense, the magistrates point out that "equality cannot be admitted in the penological response, even for the indicated reason, and this dysfunction must be corrected."

Even so, the Supreme Court considers the guilt of the four "obvious" and that the three companions of the captain cannot claim "any ignorance", for which reason it annuls the previous sentence. "The skipper of the boat had control of the facts, the other defendants being essential cooperators in his action," he explains.

For the National Court, the three Senegalese acted with "deliberate ignorance" and, for its part, the Supreme Court supports that they cannot claim ignorance regarding the drugs that were inside the boat "given the relevant amount of it" (20,512 kilos ), "which made it impossible to manipulate it by a single person".

"The three crew members acted, at least, with deliberate ignorance, without wanting to know what they could and should know, assuming and accepting the consequences of their illegal behavior, in which they participated voluntarily, for which they acted with eventual intent," he maintains in its resolution, of November 30.

However, what the high court does maintain, on the one hand, are the fines of 82 million euros per head and, on the other, the possibility of changing the prison sentence for their expulsion from Spanish territory once they meet at least the half worth it.

The Supreme Court recalls that the Senegalese were offered money and accepted their voluntary participation in the journey. Also that by looking at the ship's hold, whose entrance was only covered by an awning, a large number of bales could be seen, around 700.

And they point out that it would have been impossible for the 74-year-old captain to load or transfer the 700 bundles with 20 tons of drugs alone, given his "scarce physical build", while the three laborers who accompanied him were younger and with greater force.

The 'Odyssey 227' was boarded at dawn on June 1 last year by agents from the Tax Agency, the Civil Guard and the National Police after requesting it from the Mongolian consular authorities, since the ship was registered in that Asian country .