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TSJA sentences a policeman to nine months in jail for assaulting a handcuffed detainee at a police station in Cádiz

CADIZ, 19 Jan.

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TSJA sentences a policeman to nine months in jail for assaulting a handcuffed detainee at a police station in Cádiz

CADIZ, 19 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Civil and Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA) has sentenced an agent of the National Police to nine months in prison for a crime against moral integrity committed against a man who was detained and handcuffed in a Police station of a town in Cádiz and to which he gave various punches and kicks.

As indicated by the TSJA in a note, in the ruling, the magistrates partially uphold the appeal filed by the defense of the assaulted man against the ruling of the Provincial Court of Cádiz, which sentenced the agent to pay a fine of 900 euros and to payment of compensation of 245 euros to the victim for a minor offense of injury with the aggravation of abuse of superiority, while the appellant was sentenced to six months in prison for the crime of attacking an agent of authority.

Faced with this, the TSJA has maintained the conviction of the police officer for the minor crime of injury but, in addition, it condemns him for a crime against moral integrity committed by a public official and imposes nine months in prison and two years of special disqualification for employment. or public office in any of the Security Corps and Forces, as well as to compensate the victim with 4,000 euros.

Likewise, the magistrates acquitted the assaulted man of the crime of attacking an agent of the authority for which he was convicted in the first instance, since they consider that his conduct "cannot be subsumed" in said crime "in any of its typical modalities: nor as serious resistance --excluded in advance--, neither as attack, nor as aggression, nor as serious intimidation".

In its judgment, the Provincial Court of Cádiz considered it proven that the events occurred around midnight on January 31, 2019, when the convicted agent was performing his duties at a police station in a town in Cádiz, providing security. in the module of said dependencies, where the assaulted man was detained together with other individuals.

In this regard, and at the latter's request that his wife, who was also detained, be admitted to a module where she could be treated given her state of health, the accused agent replied by denying his request and telling him "that that was not a hotel", at which time the detainee, "in a state of nervousness and disturbance, began to yell loudly, going so far as to hit an adjoining table", while, "with the intention of undermining the principle of authority, he began to gesticulate in an intimidating manner" and "pounced" on the police officer, reaching his chest with his fists.

At that moment, and according to the Court of Cádiz, the convicted policeman "grabbed the detainee with one of his arms by the neck" and immobilized him, "beginning a struggle between the two" in the framework of which the agent, "exceeding his functions and abusing his position of superiority" over the arrested man, when he found his hands shackled and without the possibility of defense, he began to punch him in the face successively "with the intention of undermining his physical integrity" until the victim fell to the ground , where he kicked him twice in the head, being then separated by the agents present there.

The TSJA, in a judgment handed down on January 12 and against which it is possible to file an appeal before the Supreme Court, substantially accepts these proven facts but deletes the phrase "in an intimidating manner" and replaces "he pounced" with "he headed ", partially estimating the appeal of the assaulted man, understanding that the action of the police officer "is a paradigmatic assumption of mistreatment of a detainee, an attempt against the moral integrity of the person who is the passive subject of the same."

In addition, it has added that "there are many sentences that subsume in one of the crimes against moral integrity committed by a public official the conduct of the agent of the Security Corps and Forces who unjustifiably hits a handcuffed detainee."

After enumerating several of these sentences, the magistrates have asserted that "it cannot be argued that the action taken by the accused agent, by punching and kicking a detained citizen who was handcuffed in police stations, even if it was in reaction to the insults and verbal threats that the detainee uttered (in turn, provoked to a large extent by the agent himself), constitutes a clear act of arbitrary domination and abuse of power, which threatens not only the physical integrity of the victim, but also his dignity personal and, therefore, against his moral integrity".

In this sense, they have added that it is a matter of physical and moral integrity that the agent, "as an official of the National Police Force, was obliged to respect and ensure its preservation, in accordance with the statutory mandate of article 5.3 of the Forces Law and Security Bodies, exactly the opposite of what the defendant did".

The private prosecution exercised by the assaulted man had requested in his appeal that the police officer be sentenced to the maximum sentence of four years in prison for this crime, but the TSJA has rejected this claim because it does not consider that the assault prosecuted "has special gravity "which would justify said sentence.