Those accused of stealing bottles of wine from the Atrio de Cáceres restaurant did not recognize the events that took place in October 2021 and exercised their right not to testify at the trial started this Monday in Cáceres County Court. Constantin Dumitru and Priscila Lara Guevara, who have been transferred from prison in the capital Cáceres, where they have been since the summer of last year, did not want to answer questions from the prosecutor or the special prosecutor’s office.
In Priscila’s case, defense attorney Sylvia Córdoba’s was not like that, but Constantin Dumitru expressed his intention to answer the defense attorney’s questions. He did not want to ask questions of his defendantsso its appearance was resolved in a few minutes.
Therefore, the hearing, which started at 9.48 a.m. at the Cáceres State Court, had to be adjourned at 10.30, pending the time when the first witnesses called to take their statements. He is accused of stealing 45 bottles of wine, valued at 1.6m euros according to the restaurant menu.
In the case of witnesses, restaurant workers in Cáceres, police officers and Owners of Atrio, José Polo and Toño Pérezhowever, one of the witnesses is in Brazil and Toño Pérez is unable to attend the hearing as he is at a gastronomic event outside of Cáceres.
José Polo and other witnesses, who are expected to pass through the courtroom from the second day of the trial, will be held on Wednesday, March 1is devoted to the four experts cited in this case, which aroused great media expectations, with a large number of accredited national and some international media.
The court, chaired by Judge Joaquín González Casso, will listen to the testimony of witnesses and experts, and the defendants will, predictably, have the final say after hearing the statements of all those summoned in this case. case. .
Prosecutor Carmen Barquilla demands four years and six months in prison for both Persons he sees as co-authors of the crime of forced robbery in a public establishment, which is particularly serious due to the high amount of stolen objects.
The special prosecution was represented by the lawyer Rafael Montes, the insurance company Reale, which came to an agreement with Atrio and paid him about 800,000 euros in compensationask for the money paid and the bottles to appear.
The defendants, a 48-year-old man with Romanian and Dutch nationality, and a 29-year-old woman with Mexican nationality, They were detained while trying to enter the country by car at the Croatian border in July 2022. A few days later, they were transferred to Spain to testify before the judge, who ordered their detention without bail in Cáceres prison, where they have remained ever since.