• The testimony: The accused: "I prefer not to testify because I am not well"
  • The accusation. The Prosecutor's Office: "It was an execution"
  • The process starts the trial of the year

Today the family intrigues that convulsed the house of the Sala-Martínez family in the third session of the trial for the crime of the widow of the former president of the CAM Vicente Sala. Guided by the baton of the prosecutor and his lawyer, the firstborn son of marriage has disemboweled the emotional relationships that were lived within the walls and indicated the genesis of the deep (and already insurmountable) family gap: the desire of his sisters to have more prominence in the holding company without having the proper training, the attempts of the three women to remove him from the business, the firm opposition of Mari Carmen Martínez and the influence, according to him, of the husband of her little sister to gain power .

It was the first time since his mother appeared dead with two shots in the head on December 9, 2016 that he returned to coincide in space and time with his brother-in-law, Miguel López, the only one accused of the murder. The physical distance between them was short, it did not reach a meter, but the psychological has made it seem kilometric. They have not looked at each other . The businessman believes that López "drove" his sisters and killed his mother because he threatened the car business he ran.

During the two hours that Vicente Sala has been declaring, his brother-in-law has barely looked up from the ground. Maybe once, two, three at most but no more. They could not afford an encounter with their eyes.

With the help of the prosecutor, Sala has illustrated the jurors about a family situation that, he explained, began to twist two years after the death of his father (in 2011) when, he said, « my sisters wanted to throw me out to direct them the business without having the necessary preparation ». That is why Mari Carmen Martínez intervened. " My mother thought it was a temerity that the leadership would pass to my sisters , for that reason and for fulfilling my father's will, she wanted to pass me the golden action."

Sala recalled that he has worked at the parent company, Samar International, since 1989 and that when he took the reins he was the architect of a spectacular expansion in Latin America, North Africa and Germany, as well as Spain. Thus, he explained that he never opposed his sisters being an important part of the company and that he even encouraged them to form but that there came a time when "we did not agree on the way to take it." According to his vision, Miguel López was the one who "directed my sisters . " His lawyer has even recalled several whatsapp conversations in which the defendant's wife asked him to go buy a pen with a microphone so that Miguel could hear what was said at the shareholders meeting , since he could not attend.

The fact that Mar, Tania and Fani Sala wanted to remove him from the business made Maria Carmen Martínez make the decision to change the statutes to appoint her only sole administrator son and transfer the gold share, the privileged participation that allowed her to have the last word on the holding. In this way, he shielded his business future . The change of statutes was projected for January 2017. The murder occurred in December 2016 .

Miguel López, he clarified, was the sole administrator of Novocar, the company in the automobile sector that the family had. Things were not going well and his mother, he said, even considered closing it. "She didn't do it because she wanted to fulfill my father's will, which asked that each son-in-law take his part of the business. He did it only and exclusively to fulfill his husband's will." The defendant, he clarified, earned a salary of 100,000 euros per year . A money that he would stop charging, he said, "if with the golden action it stopped him."

On his relationship with Miguel López, he replied that at the beginning it was good. When the internal power struggles began everything was twisted. He has also stopped to describe the personality of the accused. He has asked questions of prosecutor José Llor and his lawyer Francisco Ruiz-Marco. " Miguel was nervous, impulsive and we could say he had an aggressive soon. He liked to participate in everything," he said. Then he revealed two episodes in which he had witnessed that volcanic character. « Once he punched the table and got up and went for my mother and my aunt and I had to intervene. And on another occasion, a guest had to ask him not to shout at my mother .

Regarding the moment when he was told about his mother's death, Sala said he was in shock. " I fell to the ground, I collapsed ."

The testimony that preceded Vicente Sala was one of the most interested in the accusations. Herminio, the person in charge of the laundry, sat before the jury first thing in the morning. And it has been very clear. He has assured that the day on which the murder occurred the dealer's routine was broken . "Cars were never delivered to the laundry once they were ready." In addition, he indicated that on the day of the crime, at four in the afternoon he was going to clean the laundry as usual and that Miguel sent him to load and unload furniture to a nearby ship.

In addition, he was the person who found Mari Carmen Martínez bleeding leaning on the hood of her car after receiving both shots. I was still alive. Herminio indicated that in his agony, " the lady tried to tell us something but could no longer ." Tomorrow the testimonials continue and it will be the turn of the two daughters of the deceased.

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