Outcry against police "negligence" in the 'Deborah case' two decades after her murder: "She has been screwed up"

• Events An "unknown to date" file with material on the 'Deborah case' appears in police stations in Madrid

• Events https://www.elmundo.es/espana/2022/05/03/6270f35f21efa095198b459d.html

• Chronicle Listening to Deborita: her body, her computer and her agenda will be able to solve her murder

Déborah Fernández-Cervera

disappeared on April 30, 2002 after going out to play sports on the Samil beach in

.

Her body was located 10 days later in O Rosal, 40 kilometers away, naked in a ditch, covered with dry leaves and with semen placed

to simulate rape.

She was 22 years old.

Since then, her family has struggled tirelessly to find out what happened to her, but they never stop encountering obstacles that make them go from "disbelief" to "indignation" and the conviction that "there is no Justice".

The last chapter of his 20 years searching for "the truth of what happened to him" has been written by a letter from the

unit in charge of the investigation.

On September 5, it reported that "a hitherto unknown file" had appeared with effects and documentation relating to the case.

A mobile phone without a SIM card, video tapes, photographs and police documents that were not known to exist were found as a result of some construction work at the UDEV Central offices in the

, in Madrid.

With the end of the works, a process of digitalization of the documentation of the

began and, together with documentation related to other old matters, this evidence appeared.

His finding has led the family's legal team, led by

and

, to request the judge of Tui's Investigating Court number 2 to withdraw the police team in charge of the investigation since 2002.

"You can't go on for another second intervening in this procedure," they say.

The anger of the legal team is nothing compared to that of his family.

"How are we?

Hallucinating.

The negligence so far has been aberrant and now we have the tacit demonstration that there was no rigor, "his sister,

, responds in conversation with EL MUNDO , very critical of the Police and the" laziness "of the judge and the prosecutor of the case, which since 2019 has only requested a diligence, a witness statement that "has not led anywhere."

A policeman looks for clues in the place where the body appeared. MIGUEL RIOPAEFE

The investigation remained stopped for years, it was filed in court between 2010 and 2019 and, after a final

in which "everything that has been found out about the murder in recent years is because the family has found it out", on 1 May the instruction prescribed for any possible new suspect.

Even if new evidence appears, nothing can be investigated.

The case can only be pursued against her ex-boyfriend,

, who was always the main suspect for the family.

A 2019 report pointed to this boy and Rosa finds it "hard to believe" that he was not summoned to court as investigated until February 2022. Finally, until March of this year, almost two decades after his death, he did not declare for the first time in court.

It took eight years for the court to search his car.

Rosa recounts "multiple irregularities" until now "they have screwed up at a stratospheric level."

«The first negligence appears on page 11 of the summary.

Between page

is the report of the Civil Guard on the collection of evidence from the crime scene and what is registered in the court and an extra envelope appears that is not included in the first expert report of the police, "he explains. Pink.

For Ignacio and Ramón Aguado, the finding of the cell phone is "the most serious" of these irregularities, along with not having made Déborah's computer hard drive available to the court until 2019. He remained at home for years, in 2006 they picked up and nothing was heard of for 13 years.

According to her sister, there is a collection act from 2006 that "uses a typeface that did not exist in 2006."

Despite the fact that they have asked to know the chain of custody of that hard drive and details about the nature of the collection act, the judge has denied the request.

Posters in Vigo with the printed photograph of the young woman. MIGUEL RIOPAEFE

In the case of the mobile, his mother handed it over to the police in 2006 and he remembers that they put the mobile in one bag and the

in another, but, until its discovery in the works in Canillas, nothing was known about him.

In a 2019 report, the Police spoke of a "visual inspection" of the mobile, but it was noted that it had never been collected by the Police for analysis.

However, it has now turned up and an inspector who led the investigation made recent statements on television saying that the Police "already knew of the existence of the mobile".

The family's lawyers ask that "this obvious contradiction" be clarified.

"It's late, we know.

Little remains to be done, or perhaps nothing, but we demand that the UCDEV of Madrid be withdrawn from the case and that what remains to be done be entrusted to the

», Ramón and Ignacio Aguado insist in their latest judicial brief.

Rosa adds that, in fact, Déborah's body appeared in an area under the jurisdiction of the Civil Guard and "I don't know why it was decided that it was the Police" that would take on the case.

In addition, he insists that "we have already lost confidence in them", alluding to the National Police, and focuses his only hopes on a new investigative team.

His struggle stems from "personal desperation."

Rosa was 17 years old when it happened and the first few years she "did not have the tools to deal with a case like this", but since she became an adult she takes it as a personal challenge.

"My sister is not going to be returned to me, but what I want is to know the truth, regardless of the judicial process."

She also seeks social reparation: "The police have always made us feel like crazy and time has proved us right."

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