Jury finds the accused of killing his father-in-law in Aranda de Duero guilty of murder, burglary and robbery

The popular jury has found guilty of murder, burglary and robbery the accused of killing his father-in-law in Aranda de Duero (Burgos) in October 2024. The members of the jury unanimously issued their guilty verdict this Monday after the forensic doctors determined that J.H.L. His faculties of understanding and will were not altered when he committed the crime. The jury has also rejected any possibility of suspending the sentence or granting a pardon. On the other hand, the jury has assessed as a favorable circumstance that J.H.L. has recognized the facts - even though he claimed partial amnesia - formulated in the last word, as well as the allocation of 66,000 euros made by his defense to partially cover civil compensation.

The points of the final verdict point to the accused as the author of a crime of murder since he is considered responsible for violently killing his father-in-law, taking advantage of the fact that he could not defend himself from the attack. He was also found guilty of the crime of breaking and entering, since he entered without authorization the home on Avenida de Castilla where the victim's relatives lived, including minors and elderly people.

Added to these crimes is robbery with violence, since the court found him guilty of taking various personal effects - including telephones and keys -, using force and direct aggression against the victims to steal them (although he was unanimously acquitted of one of the specific charges regarding a mobile terminal). He was also found guilty of using another's vehicle and falsifying documents, since he stole a van from the Javier Kan Industria Ganadera company without permission and placed bent or false license plates to evade police action during his escape.

Finally, he was found guilty of the crimes of attack and injury to authority, for causing injuries to two agents of the National Police Corps. One of them required first medical assistance and the second required subsequent rehabilitation treatment. When ruling on the execution of the future sentence, the jury was categorical and flatly refused to grant him the suspension of the custodial sentence and completely ruled out proposing to the Government the granting of a pardon, whether total or partial.

On the part of the Public Prosecutor's Office, the strategy involves only accepting the mitigating circumstance of reparation for the damage—leaving the crime of attack out of this consideration—, while ruling out the existence of a confession with criminal relevance and rejecting the application of the aggravating circumstance of abuse of trust due to kinship. In an even more restrictive line, the private prosecution remains firm: it requests the same main penalties, demands the maximum punishment for the crime of murder and flatly denies that any kind of mitigating circumstance can be applied in favor of the defendant.