Maje's defense describes Salva's confession as "mendacious" and "liar": "He did have a motive to kill Antonio, she did not"

• Trial. The prosecutor of the 'Maje case' maintains his accusation against the lovers and addresses the jury: "I ask you to give yours to the two defendants"

• Analysis. Portrait of the widow 'Maje': Predator or victim of a parallel trial, of machismo and sexual morality

The fate of

and

will be in the hands of the five women and four men who make up the popular jury that judges them for the stabbing murder of Antonio Navarro, her husband, on August 16, 2017. in the garage of the conjugal home on Calamocha street in Valencia.

On the final day of the oral hearing, prior to the jury's deliberations that will start this Friday, both

and

have made use of their right to have the last word, to again ask for forgiveness and express their repentance, although for very different reasons .

Salva, who confessed to the crime in court but also incriminated her, has offered his apologies to the victim's family.

"I confess the facts and my deep regret," Salvador said.

His lawyer has reinforced the request to the jury: "The context does not serve to justify it but it does to understand it and arouse compassion in the face of behaviors that go beyond reason and ethics," said the lawyer

Maje, who has also had a memory for her in-laws, denies having participated in the crime but says she regrets not having reported her lover when he let her know that he had carried out the criminal action.

"First of all, my regret and forgiveness to Antonio's family and my selfishness and cowardice when Salvador told me what he had done. I only thought of myself. I'm very sorry," he said.

The next step in the trial of the so-called "crime of Patraix" will be the elaboration of the questions that the jury must answer to compose its verdict of guilt or innocence.

That will be done this Friday in an agreed manner between the defenses, the accusations and the magistrate-president of the jury court,

, who has the last word in the proposal for the purpose of the verdict.

This Friday the confinement and deliberation of the popular jury will begin, which has three different versions of what happened on the table.

On the one hand, the one presented by the Public Prosecutor's Office and the private prosecution that represents the family, which considers both responsible for murder;

on the other, Salva's defense, which admits material authorship and implicates Maje as a planner;

and, finally, the account of Maje's defense attorney, the professor of Criminal Law

who, in his brief of conclusions, has again requested the acquittal of his client.

confession

has not modified the approach of the prosecution, which continues to claim 18 years in prison for him and 22 for Maje, with the aggravation of kinship.

The representation of Antonio's family has lowered the petition for Salva somewhat - from 18 to 16 years - since, according to his lawyer, he has seen "repaired" with his confession a minimum of the moral damage caused.

For the Public Prosecutor, there is legal literature that supports the convictions supported by the incriminating statement of one of the co-authors.

And he has asked the court to condemn the accused.

"Do justice and give yours to the two accused," he said.

In

opinion

,

confession

is "mendacious" and "liar".

But, in addition, jurisprudence requires that this confession be fully probative that no benefit is sought, that it does not contain contradictions and that there be objective and clear evidence to corroborate that statement.

For Boix, Salva's indictment in the case "has not been persistent but contradictory, he cannot provide essential details and seeks a benefit of reducing the sentence."

By contrast, for the prosecutor

"everything declared by Salvador is proven."

And the defense of the confessed perpetrator of the murder explained that Salva's version change after serving ten months in jail "was not an act of revenge or heartbreak" but rather "he decided to tell the truth out of his conscience and because he understood the truth. seriousness of what he had done. "

And he concluded: "he lost everything, his family, his job and harmed people, for a hypothetical future with her."

There was no cover-up

The lawyer Javier Boix, who is a team with the lawyer

, not only says he warns that "there is not a single piece of evidence" that confirms the "concertation" of a criminal plan between Maje and Salva, but has even denied that she committed a crime of cover-up by not going to the police when Salva confirmed that he had killed her husband.

According to Boix, one thing is the "human cover-up", which is what María Jesús admitted in her statement, and another is the planned "criminal offense" that, in his opinion, would not fit in this case.

The cover-up, Boix said, "is a legal outrage."

In addition, your role as "defense" in the trial would be to rebut that cover-up charge if it existed.

But it's not like that.

Maje is accused of being a co-author of murder and therefore the prosecutor asks for 22 years in prison with the aggravation of kinship.

Maje's defense has come to describe Salva's confession as "mendacious" and "lying".

For his lawyer, his statement was "sincere, consistent and devastating."

Salvador's lawyer no longer asks for his acquittal alleging mental insanity, but asks for a favorable sentence of 7 and a half years for mitigating late confession and reparation of the damage to the family.

Addressing the jury, the criminal lawyer has even resorted to psychological arguments, such as the fact, pointed out by him, that some of the policemen who testified looked "in the face" of the members of the popular court "to see if they believed them" when they were being questioned about the accusations.

"But when I asked them, they looked at me."

Body behavior, Boix said, "is important in these cases."

In his final argument, Boix distributed attacks to all parties, with the usual forcefulness and elegance.

He did so in response to some pearls that the prosecutor

and the lawyer for Antonio's family,

,

left him in the morning

.

From the outset, he announced criminal actions against the private accusation by the family of María Jesús' mother after the lawyer Miguel Ferrer pointed out the possibility that the mother had also committed a crime of cover-up after she admitted in her statement that her daughter told her that Salva had confessed to the crime.

"My daughter told me that Salva told her how he had hidden ... oh, well he waited in the garage and after fighting with Antonio, he killed him in self-defense," revealed María Dolores, María Jesús's mother, to questions of the prosecutor.

Vicente Devesa asked him another question: "Did that conversation take place before the arrest?"

The answer was clear: "Yes."

However,

version

is that this conversation between mother and daughter took place already when she was in prison.

In his view, "many human cover-ups are not a crime" and neither committed a crime as contemplated in the Penal Code, which requires in its article 451 that the perpetrator of a crime be assisted so that they benefit from the "proceeds "or" profit "of the crime or the body, effects or instruments of a crime are concealed, altered or rendered useless, to prevent its discovery.

Is there or is there no mobile?

Boix's intense legal debate with the accusations has also been interesting regarding whether or not there was a motive that prompted the perpetrators to commit the crime.

In his final report, the prosecutor

has stated that in most crimes the motive is "intimate" and, therefore, diffuse.

But he has cited legal literature that maintains that the motive for a crime is not relevant when assessing it criminally.

For Boix, however, the existence of a motive to commit a crime (in this case to kill) is not only important, but must also be considered when applying a sentence.

For the prosecutor, "there comes a time when he (Salvador) falls madly in love with the defendant and is dependent on her. He does everything together with her, takes her shopping, takes out transport tickets and even buys her skirts ".

With the murder, "Salva destroyed her life and she took her husband out of the way and, in addition, she earned a pension and two insurance policies," she explained to clarify that this was a consequence, not the motive.

The private prosecution, led by lawyers Miguel Ferrer and Patricia Cogollos, has portrayed the three "Ms" of Maje: "liar, bad and manipulative."

The lawyer Boix, on the other hand, believes that "the prosecutor considers that the motive is not important."

"It's like saying that things happen just because and people always do things for something."

The lawyer has encouraged the jury to consider whether it can effectively be argued that someone killed a person for no apparent reason to do so.

In Maje's case, she said, she showed that she could continue to have relationships with other men outside of marriage, even if her husband were still alive.

"I had the same sexual relations," said Boix.

Instead, Salva admitted that "my situation from being to not being this (Antonio) does change."

Therefore, according to the defense attorney, "he did have a motive" to kill and "she did not."

Against the other defense

Salvador's lawyer, Julita Martínez, has also been the object of direct criticism from Boix, whom he considers "the third accusation" for having named her client as a co-author.

And he has tried to refute the expert report on Salvador's personality presented by the lawyer to prove the "weakness" of character and the "dependency" that he presents in his social relationships.

The lawyer has even discredited their authors for not being psychiatrists, but psychologists and for accrediting a doctorate in criminology, when that postgraduate degree is in psychology.

In another direct message to the members of the jury, Javier Boix has warned that they should only take into account for their verdict "what is proven".

And he has charged against the accusations for raising questions in his opinion with confirmed and saying that "although it is not proven, it does not mean that it could not happen."

In law, he has said, "what is not proven is not proven" and to "induce murder, the person has to convince the other to kill and how to kill him."

Another of the conclusions of the defense of María Jesús Moreno is that, in his opinion, "it is not logical" that two people who had arranged a crime would stay at her sister's house at noon to talk about it.

"The logical thing in a case like this is to stay so as not to be seen," said Boix.

"It doesn't make sense to plan a crime and have Salvador go to his sister's house to tell her about it."

And, in his opinion, "it doesn't make sense for a cold, planning woman to break her relationship with him in jail."

The logical thing, he pointed out, "would have been to keep the sacred fire alive so that he would not betray him."

But, according to the lawyer, Maje decided "that Salva was fine."

His client "is risking another 20 years in jail for not continuing with him because he received another advice that Salva was already fine, and although he threatened her, she thinks that if she wants to change her version she should do whatever she wants because I did not agree nothing".

In conclusion, for the defense of the widow of Antonio Navarro "there is not a single direct, clear, effective evidence that shows that Maje agreed with Salva to kill her husband, much less how he had to kill him," the lawyer.

"They never speak before or after, in any of the multiple telephone conversations intervened and in the audition of the cafeteria that was recorded has been proven."

In contrast, for Salva's defense, his former lover "convinced him in such a way that he was essential in his life that the only way to be happy was to end his marriage" and in that sense he has maintained that Salva acted because "always he thought it was true love and they would arrange a life together. "

And he has added: "We have shown that she fostered a loving relationship, she never gave her pumpkins, on the contrary."

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

See links of interest

• Last minute

• Programming

• Spanish translator

• 2020 calendar

• Movies Today

• Topics

• Stage 9 of the Vuelta a España, live: Castrillo del Val - Aguilar de Campoo

• CSKA Moscow - Valencia Basket

• FK Qarabag - Villarreal

• Real Madrid - FC Bayern Munich

• Granada CF - PAOK Salonika