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Mayte Amorós
Monday, 25 November 2024, 15:48
A jury found elderly defendant Pablo Rigo innocent in court in Mallorca last week. The elderly man was on trial for killing one of the two thieves who had entered his home in Porreres (Mallorca) with a hunting rifle. This is the second time that he has been tried for the incident. In 2023 he was acquitted but the sentence was quashed and a retrial was ordered.
After two days of deliberation, the jury ruled that Pablo Rigo was innocent of the crime of murder for which the prosecutor had demanded three years in prison.
On this occasion the jury - consisting of six women and three men - unanimously decided that Pablo Rigo acted in self-defence. In the first trial in 2023 there were five votes in favour and four votes against, calling for his acquittal. In its written statement, the jury considers that Rigo shot the thief and that he had no intention of killing him, contrary to the prosecution's case, which maintains that allegation because it considers that the man "went all out to get them" and shot at them to prevent them from stealing 15,000 euros that he had in a safe.
The Public Prosecutor's Office initially requested four years in prison for Rigo but reduced the request to three years because of the mitigating circumstance of undue delay in bringing him to trial. At the same time, the prosecutor demanded a total of 16 years in prison for the three thieves.
The prosecution, brought by the mother of the deceased thief, requested that the elderly man compensate the family with 160,000 euros in addition to a prison sentence of 10 years for ending the life of her son in cold blood, in her opinion. Mauricio Escobar, 25, died as a result of a gunshot to the abdomen from the hunting rifle that Rigo had ready-loaded.
The events date back to 24 February 2018 when Fredy and Mauricio Escobar, two 25-year-old Colombian brothers, assaulted the owner with metal crowbars as the elderly man was leaving his home. They grabbed him by the neck and covered his mouth to stop him from screaming. They locked his wife in a room . They ripped out the landline telephone cable and took the owner to the basement to open the safe for them. "I thought they were going to kill us. They say I didn't do it right, but what was I supposed to do?" the old man told the jury.
Walking slowly and using a cane Pablo Rigo appeared 14 days ago before a second, new court. He confessed that it felt like going through hell to be facing a second trial at his age and he admitted that, since the robbery, "his life was not a life" and he felt "shattered". In his nearly 80-minute statement given on 8 November, the elderly man claimed that he shot the robber out of self-defence without his glasses on and simply to dodge being attacked again, but without any intention of ending the thief's life.
In contrast, Fredy Escobar, the surviving robber, denied at all times having used violence against Rigo or his wife up to the moment of the shooting and maintained that the old man shot them as they were leaving the house with their backpacks loaded with the stolen money. However, the thief exonerated the octogenarian by stating that he did not "bear a grudge" against "don Pablo", whom he believes is not a "murderer" . Just 24 hours after testifying, the 32-year-old Colombian was arrested for beating up another man in a squat in Palma de Mallorca on 9 November 2024. He is currently in prison on remand.
A year ago the octogenarian was convicted by a jury with an insufficient majority of five votes when in fact seven votes are required to convict. This unusual error went unnoticed until days later when it was detected, creating great confusion and uncertainty. The presiding judge for the court declared Rigo's guilty verdict null and void. The Balearic Public Prosecutor's Office asked the Audiencia (Mallorca's Provincial Court) for the old man to be retried. As a result, the judge ordered a retrial in the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands without passing sentence.
Pablo Rigo changed his lawyer and his new lawyer then asked for an acquittal as he considered there was an insufficient majority of votes to find him guilty. The judge ruled out a verdict of acquittal, arguing that "the aforementioned error made it impossible to know with certainty the decision that the jury would have taken." Subsequently, the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the TSJB (the Balearics' equivalent of the Bar Council) upheld the appeal lodged by Pablo Rigo's defence lawyer and revoked the null declaration. However, the Chamber considered that "there were no grounds to justify the annulment." Later on it was the Provincial Court that acquitted the old man.
On 7 May the court held a hearing in which the Prosecutor's Office requested the annulment of the sentence and thus a retrial. Rigo's defence argued that the appeal should be dismissed and the acquittal upheld.
Now represented by a new lawyer - he has changed lawyers three times - Pablo Rigo sat in the dock again on 8 November and told the court about the fear he experienced when the Escobar brothers robbed his home in February 2018 for the second time. He suspects that they were the same thieves who had robbed him two months earlier using the same method and entering the property barefoot.
The first time he was bound and gagged with cable ties, left in the basement and the garage key was taken. In the second robbery, he was accosted in the driveway. They locked his wife in a room and he was made to go down to the basement to open the safe. When he went back upstairs, Rigo seized his hunting rifle, which was already loaded, to use as a "deterrent" and he only fired the gun when he saw Fredy coming at him with the metal bar (jemmy). "I shouted 'get out', but I couldn't think of them attacking me again," he said.
Fredy Escobar explained that the robbery plan between the two ringleaders was to steal the money from the safe in Rigo's house and leave, not to kill the couple. He is adamant that the owner of the house surprised them with the gun when they were already leaving with the backpacks loaded with money: "Mauricio went up the stairs first and stopped when he saw it. 'I'll kill you', bam. And the gun went off."
According to the verdict, Rigo had the gun at waist level without aiming it and, terrified by the previous robbery, had grabbed the gun in order to make the thieves just leave the house. The jurors noted that he was completely overwhelmed by fear and that he feared for his life when he saw one of the robbers with a crowbar in his hand.
As to the other three defendants who had planned and committed the robbery, the jury found them guilty of robbery with violence. In addition, the jury also found the robber guilty of the crime of injuring another person, for having entered the house with his brother who died, and the jury did not consider that he acted in legitimate self-defence.
The members of the jury were unanimous in their verdict on all grounds set out in the verdict and considered the undue delay in the judicial proceedings to be proven.
In short, the jury found it proven that the robbers agreed to commit the crime of theft, planned the robbery and committed it. According to the verdict, two of the robbers had been watching the house for days before the robbery and they were the ones who drove the other two by car to enter the house and commit the robbery. The jurors unanimously considered it proven that they did use physical violence during the robbery and that not all of the stolen money was recovered.
Finally, the jury decided against pardoning the convicted defendants and suspending their sentences.
After the reading of the verdict the judge presiding over the court, Rocío Martín, made it known to the accused that the jury has declared him not guilty and that, in the next few days, an acquittal sentence will be issued for him.
As to the thieves, the representative of the Public Prosecutor's Office has asked for two of them to be sentenced to three years in prison and for the brother who broke into the house to a total sentence of six years in prison. The rest of the lawyers have requested the minimum sentence for their clients.
The presiding judge for this court will pass sentence in the next few days.
Rigo's lawyer, Eduardo Valvidia, asked the court to take into account that the assailants violated his home and his physical integrity. "They humiliated him, they beat him, they robbed him.... And they tried to take his life and that of his wife. We have the right to defend ourselves. Here, or wherever we happen to be," he concluded.
So here ends the hell of Pablo Rigo, the main character in a dark chapter of Mallorca's social history and one that has shocked Mallorca society, sparking a wave of solidarity towards the elderly man. An event that also reopened the debate on what constitutes legitimate self-defence in Spain. "God presses down hard but does not suffocate, although he is suffocating me a little," was Rigo's comment in a letter written by his own hand in response to the expressions of support received from prominent personalities and anonymous members of the public.
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