- Events Lardero relives the nightmare six months later: the Civil Guard takes a child predator off the street
Francisco Javier Almeida, accused of murdering the nine-year-old boy Alex in Lardero, in October 2021, said today he remembers what happened that day with a "cloud" and has come to allege that the child did everything "voluntarily".
Room 13 of the Provincial Court of Logroño hosts, today, the first session of the trial, by popular jury, against Francisco Javier Almeida, 55, to whom the Prosecutor requests permanent prison reviewable for a crime of murder; and fifteen years in prison for a crime of sexual assault, both committed on the child Alex.
"That day I drank a lot," said Almeida in what was his first statement since, until now, he had invoked his right not to do so. He has also assured that it was not his "intention to assault and kill him", although he has not explained what he was looking for or how everything happened.
"I can not tell you what I did, it was very fast," the defendant told the prosecutor, "I remember that I was carrying the child in my arms but it was because when something happened it turned on and I took him to ask for help and take him to the hospital."
He has said he does not know how to "explain why he climbed" the boy into his house. He has acknowledged that "he was in the bedroom" but has affirmed that the child pulled down his pants alone. He has denied raping him, but he has acknowledged that the sexual act occurred.
The lawyer of the private and popular prosecution, Alicia Redondo, has warned the jury that "the next few days are going to be very unpleasant." He has "not a single doubt" that Almeida sexually assaulted the boy "with great aggressiveness" and killed him.
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