The Superior Court of Justice has confirmed the sentences imposed on a dozen activists and young people who in the 2021 elections interrupted an act of Vox in the Madrid town of Navalcarnero and starred in later disturbances with the Local Police and the Civil Guard. The judges reject the resources of three of the convicted and confirm that they assaulted the agents and that they acted moved by the ideological discrimination towards the Santiago Abascal party: “It clearly exceeds the limits of a simple and upset difference of ideological criteria,” says the judges.
Abascal himself went to that rally in this Madrid town governed at that time and currently by the PSOE, but where the extreme right party achieved the best result in the general elections of November 2019. One of its multiple campaign acts in those autonomous elections of 2021 of Madrid and two weeks after the rally in Vallecas that also ended up with disturbances. A campaign in which, one day before going to Navalcarnero, Vox displayed his racist message against unaccompanied foreign minors, falsely stating that these young people receive more money than an old man.
Several dozen people gathered in the vicinity of the act by launching eggs to Vox followers with shouts, according to the judges, of “fascists, we are going to kill you” or “the good fascist is the one who is dead.” The act was suspended and the followers of the extreme right party tried to leave the town, at which time the confrontations with the Local Police and the Civil Guard occurred.
The protagonists of the riots, the sentence points out, started stones and cobblestones “of considerable size” of the gardens of the town hall and surrounding streets. There were 11 agents injured, for which according to the courts and sentences of the case “a serious danger was generated”, in addition to reflecting that some businesses had to close. Some riots with which Vox came to affirm that he considered the possibility of calling his followers to use violence as well.
The case came to trial at the Provincial Court of Madrid three years after the disturbances and led to a sentence with sentences for 11 of the more than 15 detainees. The highest penalties were five and a half years in jail and most of them exceeded two years in prison but the Prosecutor's Office, after reaching a pact with some of the convicted, supported that they did not have to enter the jail mandatory.
Three of those convicted decided to take their case before the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid that, as Eldiario.es has been able to verify, has rejected their allegations and confirmed their criminal sanction. Two of them were the ones who received the highest sentences of five and a half years in prison for public disorders, attack, damage and minor injuries. And in addition to the lack of evidence they discussed that the aggravating circumstance of ideological discrimination could be applied.
One of the resources stated, for example, that in the event of that convicted person there was a “mere ideological discrepancy” but not so much to reach an aggravating circumstance. The Judges of the TSJM answer that what happened in Navalcarnero “clearly exceeds the limits of a simple and amarrable difference of ideological criteria, to the point of intervening in an action in which shouts are thrown, among others, which advocate the death of the political adversary.”
The riots, the judges continue, “effectively determined the interruption of an authorized and legitimate political act, causing damage and injuries.” The three defendants, who will have to enter prison if their convictions are confirmed, can still resort to the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court.
The sentence that is now confirmed also has an economic component. Those convicted must pay about 1,900 euros to the City of Navalcarnero for the damage and damage in the shields of the riot police of the Local Police, as well as a total of almost 4,000 euros to the civil guards injured during the disturbances.