17 October 2016
The Supreme Court in its recent Judgment of 16 September 2016, confirms the sentence of the Jury Court issued by the Third Section of the Madrid PA and confirmed by the High Court of Justice of Madrid, which convicts an investigated person for the crimes of falsification of public documents and murder.
The criminal investigation was initiated as a result of the presence in Spain of the extradited suspect and concluded with a conviction by the Jury Court for the crimes of falsification of public documents and murder, although there was another proceeding initiated months earlier against another suspect for the same facts, in which an acquittal had been handed down.
The representation of the defendant, in his appeal, emphasises that he was not allowed to be a party to the proceedings initiated some time ago against the other defendant who was acquitted, arguing that his client should have suffered the same fate, and should have been acquitted.
One of the relevant points of this Supreme Court ruling is found in the affirmation that ‘No constitutional right imposes a shared and solidary outcome among all the defendants who bear the provisional accusation of the Public Prosecutor’s Office’.
But the High Court also highlights another important point when it states that: ‘the opening of a criminal investigation as a result of the supervening presence in Spain of an extradited person can be agreed in parallel to other criminal proceedings in which the order of justiciable facts has already been issued by the Presiding Magistrate and which is only awaiting the start of the oral trial sessions’.
Therefore, the importance of the ruling lies in the fact that it admits the initiation of proceedings in parallel to other proceedings initiated at an earlier time against another person under investigation for the same facts, if the first proceedings had already been opened and only the oral trial sessions were pending.
You can read the full text of the judgment below:
