Francisco Javier García Marín, better known as el Cuco, today acknowledged before the judge that he lied in the trial held in October 2011 for the crime of Marta del Castillo and for which only Miguel Carcaño was convicted.
El Cuco is being tried in the Criminal Court 7 of Seville for the crime of false testimony together with his mother, Rosalía García, who has also admitted the facts of which she is accused, that is, that her statement in the trial against accused of legal age was a lie. Both she and her husband – today deceased – assured that her son was at home when they arrived at dawn, that she saw him lying in bed and that she even kissed him. Thus, they ratified the false alibi of the then minor, who assured that he was with some friends when the crime occurred and that later he returned to his house and did not come out.
The private accusation, carried out by Marta’s parents, maintains that these now admitted lies could influence the sentence by which the Provincial Court of Seville acquitted all those of legal age except Miguel Carcaño.
The acknowledgment of the facts by the accused has motivated the judge to annul most of the planned witness statements, including that of Carcaño, summoned for next Tuesday. Only the statements of Marta’s parents are kept, to assess the non-pecuniary damage caused by the false testimony.
The “little one”, which is what Marta called him, was tried and sentenced in a juvenile judge for covering up the murder of her friend and helping the murderer and “unknown third parties” who, according to the sentence of the Seville Court of the second of the trials, the one that led Miguel Carcaño to prison, also participated and could not be identified or punished.
In that second trial, Cuco and his parents testified as witnesses and all three agreed on the minor’s alibi. They insisted, despite the fact that he had already been tried and sentenced, on that rainy night of January 24 he returned to his house early, went to bed and never came out again.
That statement, which had no consequences for them at the time, formed part of the evidence base on which the Sevillian High Court built its sentence, which was not exempt from controversy due to the acquittal of all the accused, with the exception of Carcano.
Due to lack of evidence, the magistrates acquitted Carcaño’s brother, Francisco Javier Delgado; his girlfriend, María García; and the murderer’s friend, Samuel Benítez.
There is evidence that what Cuco and his parents said in November 2011 before the court that judged the adult suspects had little to do with reality. The main one is the recordings that a man, who gained the trust of the family, made for several years and in which they admit to having lied to the court.
This trial is the greatest judicial success that Marta’s family has achieved since the disappointment that the sentences of the two trials meant for the relatives of the disappeared girl, especially due to the acquittal of those who have always considered participants in what happened.
It was Marta’s parents, Antonio del Castillo and Eva Casanueva, who filed the complaint that has resulted in this oral hearing based, precisely, on the tapes of the so-called “infiltrator”, the validity of which the Justice has admitted and that the police experts have concluded that were not manipulated.
The alleged lies could cost Cuco and his mother dearly, since the private prosecution, carried out by Marta’s family, demands two years in prison and compensation of 10,000 euros for them, while the Prosecutor’s Office requests a sentence of eight months of prison.
Even the investigating judge, Carlos Mahón, is convinced that they lied in the trial and, although he does not enter into the motivation, the lawyer representing the Del Castillo family does. In his indictment, they point out that that false testimony had the obvious objective of confusing the court and, further, influencing his sentence and achieving the acquittal of most of the accused, as it happened.
Regardless of the purpose, Judge Mahón even speaks in the abbreviated procedure of a “plan” concocted by Cuco and his parents to deceive the magistrates about what really happened on the day of the crime.
Javier García assured as a witness that he had not been that night in the León XIII apartment where Marta was killed, that he was with some friends and that before midnight he returned home and did not go out. And that was what her parents confirmed, her mother came to affirm, under her oath, that she saw him asleep in her bed and that she gave him “a kiss.”
However, Judge Mahón points out in his order, there is evidence that Cuckoo was in León XIII and that, contrary to what he maintained, he did not return home before midnight. His parents, he adds, could not see him there because they were in a bar until around five in the morning.
Marta’s family has always maintained that Cuco lied to protect others involved, in particular Carcaño’s brother, whom they consider not only the mastermind but also the material author of the young woman’s death, although judicially that door was also They closed the parents and it is almost impossible for it to reopen.
Conforms to The Trust Project criteria
