The defendant in the 'crime of the Sala' to the jury: "I prefer not to testify because I am not well"

• Accusation.The prosecutor to the jury: "It was an execution"

His lawyer had already notified him early in the morning during his presentation before the jury. Miguel López, the accused of killing his mother-in-law with two shots in the head, was not in a position to testify. The state, he said, of mental "fragility" in which the crime of the widow of former CAM president Vicente Sala had prevented him.

The verification of the words of Javier Sánchez-Vera arrived after mid-morning when López stood in front of the microphone before the magistrate and the nine citizens who will condition his judicial future. The transit through the crime of his mother-in-law was very brief , just seconds to say that he was not going to be able to pronounce on him. In this way, the most anticipated declaration of the process was dropped .

With an evident state of nervousness and an almost imperceptible voice, Miguel López appeared before the jury court as a man dejected and consumed by the circumstances . " I prefer not to declare because I am not feeling well emotionally ," he said visibly affected.

Later, he returned to the side of his lawyer from where hours earlier he had stoically listened to the impressions of Francisco Ruiz-Marco - lawyer of his brother-in-law Vicente Sala, who, like the Prosecutor's Office, requested for him 24 and a half years in jail - which he injected into the non-professional court the reasons that, in his opinion, the defendant had to end the life of Mari Carmen Martínez.

"He despised and feared her," said the lawyer. Lopez, with his eyes on the ground, shook his head shyly . “The evidence will show them - Ruiz-Marco told the jury - that Miguel's luxury life depended on his mother-in-law's decisions. Those decisions conditioned the defendant's economic and family life.

The lawyer measured the times with mastery. He was concise and clear , indispensable conditions to get his message to the six women and three men sitting on the stage. Later, he stopped at the possibility that Lopez refused to testify. "On the street there is the idea that the innocent defendant should have no problem responding to all parties," he said, but immediately afterwards he added that he is entitled to not do so.

The jury's exquisite treatment led him to make a final assessment appealing to his intelligence. " With the facts and with the logic, you will reach a certain conclusion ." And he told them not to lose sight of two questions: What happened and why it happened.

After Ruiz-Marco, it was the turn of the defense, who deployed distinguished and close ways with the non-professional court . He addressed the jurors in a colloquial and casual way to attract them to him and make them see that, he insisted, "Miguel is innocent."

«I trust you. The only impartial ones are you, ” Sánchez-Vera began. And then he clarified: «Miguel López is the accused, not the murderer» .

In a dynamic exhibition he threw down the arguments of the accusations and also questioned the work of the Police. « The Police are also wrong. I question his work although I do it from respect ». Also that of the Prosecutor.

«Prosecutors are also wrong and maintain erroneous thesis. Innocence should not be proved and Miguel is innocent ». In his opinion, the signs against his client are, he said, "excessively open." Before finalizing, he insisted that he is not the author of the crime and expressed his conviction that there will be an acquittal because, as he said, neither the murder weapon nor the material author of the crime has been located.

Finally, he stressed that he requested the acquittal of the defendant because "the facts corroborate that Miguel did not shoot Mari Carmen," and remarked that his personal assets were "relieved" and had property separation from his wife.

From these antagonistic watchtowers, the defense and the private prosecution have uprooted the probative part of the trial . After the interventions of both parties and that of Miguel himself, he also declared that he was head of Novocar's workshop, the concessionaire that Miguel López ran and where his mother-in-law appeared dead the evening night of December 9, 2016.

Israel Fernández assured that that day Miguel told him that he was going to deliver the car to his mother-in-law when he went to pick it up after taking it in the morning to a tune-up. " It was not usual for him to deliver it, I did it, although some time before he could do it for friendship reasons, " he said.

Nor was it usual, according to him, that the vehicle once cleaned was left in the laundry room. « I never delivered any cars on that site. It was done in the parking lot outside . The defense asked him if Mari Carmen had ever complained that the car they had fixed was dirty and Fernandez said yes.

One response that reinforces Miguel López's thesis that if he was given the car in the laundry room, he would not hesitate to clean it.

The accusations, meanwhile, argue that he introduced the vehicle into the laundry room because it was the darkest and most remote part of the business.

In the final stretch of his statement, Israel Fernández could not specify the state in which Maria Carmen Martínez was when she went to help her. « I was blocked, I felt apprehension when I saw her bleed like that. I tried to incorporate it and I couldn't. She made sounds.

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