A teenager in Alicante was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of attempted murder after an incident in Villena. The court ruled that the young man tried to kill a man by driving over him with a car. The defendant was represented by lawyers Moisés Candela Sabater and Mari Paz Alarcón, who were ordered to compensate the victim with 15,000 euros for injuries and lasting effects. The decision, issued by Chapter Three, notes that the victim’s actions in a dispute over an occupied residence may have sparked the confrontation, or alternatively that the defendant asked his wife for money for drugs. The accused had been out of contact with the victim for about ten years.
During the investigation and private prosecution, lawyer Luis Miguel Cartagena represented the victim and sought sentences of between nine and twelve years. The court did not find proof that the defendant struck the man with a bat after the hit-and-run. The sentence also reflected mitigating factors that influenced the outcome, including the amount of 15,000 euros already deposited into the judicial account prior to the trial.
Finished
The proven facts occurred on February 7, 2022, at approximately 1:20 p.m. in the San Francisco de Asís neighborhood of Villena. The defendant, then 25 years old, accelerated and launched the vehicle toward a man riding a bicycle along the sidewalk, at a high speed in the vicinity described.
The court found that the accused contemplated causing the death of the cyclist or at least understood there was a substantial risk of fatal harm as the vehicle violently struck the man. The car left the roadway, struck a tree, and stopped. There was no proven evidence that the defendant exited the vehicle to assault the victim with a stick or baseball bat.
The assaulted man suffered trauma and bruising and required medical care for two days in intensive observation; the injuries took about four months to heal and left some lasting effects.
Distraction
At the hearing, the defendant denied the facts and claimed it was a distraction, yet during the oral hearing he acknowledged that the victim had come to his home in the morning to request money and that anger had been a triggering factor.
The victim testified that he was on the street riding his bicycle when he heard an accelerating engine and felt the impact that threw him to the ground. The injured man said he did not have ongoing problems with the defendant but noted a discrepancy connected to an occupied residence that both parties contested.
Local Police and Civil Guard reports indicated that the abuse was intentional, and the court rejected the defendant’s claim of an accidental event. Regarding the assertion of a hit-and-run being the sole cause of the injuries, the court found the latter explanation insufficient on its own.
According to the judgment, there was anger that led to the attack, and the statements included in the decision indicate that the assault was planned and that the victim was left unaware in that moment. The court concluded that the accused aimed to kill the man or, at minimum, accepted that outcome as a likely result.