The popular jury of the trial for murderillegal detention and induction into prostitution of the young Aintzane Pujana, whose cbody was found on a forest road of Aizarnazabal (Gipuzkoa) on January 4, 2021, declared guilty to the man and the woman accused. Composed of five women and six men, the jury made public this Wednesday afternoon the result of its deliberation after voting for unanimity all the issues included in the subject of the verdict that Judge Jone Unanue delivered this past Tuesday.
In it, the accused are considered guilty of murder, for whom the prosecutor requestedfor the first time in Guipuzcoa, permanent reviewable prison although, finally, he withdrew the request for her, the confessed author of the crime, due to the borderline personality disorder she suffers from, requesting a sentence of ten years in prison, after no more than twenty in a closed regime in a psychiatric center and another ten years of freedom. monitored with outpatient psychiatric treatment.
In its verdict, the jury considers it proven that both defendants managed, “collaboratively”, the prostitution services provided by Pujanaagainst her will. In addition, the jury points out that both put zip ties on Pujana, whom the accused stabbed following the accused’s orders, without the victim being able to defend himself due to his state of intoxication, to prevent him from “reporting another crime.”
On the other hand, the jury finds it proven thator work psychiatric report, nor testimonywhich demonstrates that the accused was the victim of “an insurmountable fear” of the accused, which led her to do what she did, but that the “Continuous consumption of toxic substances aggravates” the mental pathology he suffers from.
“Highly manipulable”
After the verdict was known, the Prosecutor Jorge Bermúdez has maintained his request for penaltieswhile his defense maintains his request for free acquittal and hers that the complete defense be applied to him for having killed Pujana following the orders of the defendant and fearing for his life, as well as the incomplete defense of mental disorder and the mitigation of confession for having told what happened at the police station to the Ertzaintza.
Furthermore, the accused’s lawyer has requested the end of the provisional detention for her client, something to which the prosecutor has flatly refused, requesting that she remain in provisional detention until the sentence is handed down, considering that there is “obvious risk of flight”faced with no longer “a mere high probability of conviction” for both defendants, but rather “a certainty” of it due to the conviction verdict.
To this he added that, in addition, the accused is “highly unstable and manipulable”which can lead him to commit a crime or put himself in “risk” situations and in the case of the accused there is “a serious risk of criminal recidivism”, since he is “extremely dangerous” and “capable of reproducing his violent behavior.”
Pujana lived with the accused in December 2020 in an agrotourism in Aizarnazabal, apparently, in the early morning of January 2, 2021, she had refused to perform a prostitution service, after which an argument took place with the accused that led to her murder. His body was found two days later on a forest road in Aizarnazabal with nine stab wounds to the chest and abdomen.
In statements to the media, prosecutor Jorge Bermúdez congratulated himself on the fact that the jury “has been outstanding in its work, in its attention and in the motivation for a verdict” which, in his opinion, is “of unbreakable solidity“I can only express the satisfaction of the Public Prosecutor’s Office for having managed to prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, the facts on which it based its accusation,” he said.
In this sense, he applauded that the jury has “completely” accepted the thesis of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, regarding “mediate authorship”, that is to say, that “the main accused completely manipulated the accused and that, although she was the material author of Aintzane’s death, in reality the one who pulled the strings from there was the accused himself and, therefore, they consider him exactly equally responsible as an author”.
