–
A A Coruña criminal court has sentenced a man to nine months in prison and 2,000 euros in compensation for a crime of threats against former mayor Xulio Ferreiro on social networks. The condemned man wrote on Twitter, among other publications, that “perhaps the final blow would be to hit Xulio Ferreiro with a shot in the occipital” or that “the solution for La Coruña would be the same as for Xulio Ferreiro as for Carrero Blanco.” The ex-regidor foresees, in case of collecting compensation, to donate it to social entities. The magistrate rejects that the shipments are protected by freedom of expression and denies that the circumstances exist to accept an extenuating compensation for the damage by deleting the tweets after their publication due to the impact they reached.
The events occurred in November 2017. According to the sentence of the Criminal Court number 3 of A Coruña, the convicted person published three messages. The first: “Perhaps the final blow would be to hit Xulio Ferreiro with a shot in the occiput … that way the problems in La Coruña would end. Fed up with this mob ”. The second: “The solution for La Coruña would be the same as for Xulio Ferreiro and for Carrero Blanco, to go up to the skies.” And the third: “It is sad to wish that a politician had his occipital trepan with a 7.95 but they are looking for it.” The defendant acknowledged the authorship of the tweets.
The ruling states that Ferreiro asserted in the trial that he felt “very intimidated and uneasy as nothing indicated that it was a joke, especially when he was able to verify that the author had numerous police records.” He mentions that “he was afraid, that he had no escort or anything and that there were often people around his home during that time.”
For the magistrate, the facts constitute a crime of threats provided for in the Penal Code for announcing a “bad future, unjust and determined” that produces “the natural intimidation of the threatened” with “explicit reference to the action of ending the life of Xulio Ferreiro ”. He understands that the will of the convicted person was “to intimidate the addressee of the advertisement” and “to deprive the victim of his peace and quiet.”
The ruling, issued on December 22, concludes that the defendant insisting in the trial that it was “one more tweet, without any intention” is “the least of it” because, “whatever his intention had been,” he knew that the threats could reach the mayor of Marea Atlántica, as it did. “We are facing a crime,” the court ruling continues, “as the defendant makes a qualitative leap by using social networks to highlight his speech in a message that is also accompanied by a photograph that reflects the Carrero Blanco attack ; and to make matters worse, he writes not one, but up to three messages stating, in fiery and vehement terms, that he would shoot the mayor, increasing the intimidating potentiality of the death threats contained therein.
The fact that the defendant apologized – “apology, by the way, there is no evidence that he addressed the mayor personally” – does not eliminate “the seriousness of the matter”, in the judge’s opinion, since “the severity of the unease that he had to hold the victim during those days does not admit palliative ”. “Let’s put ourselves in their place”, the sentence reasons, “someone who sees those messages, someone who holds a public office and who is the recipient of criticism from detractors on a regular basis, messages under a clearly intimidating headline whose mere writing is unparalleled audacity , you necessarily have to suffer a truly serious anguish and concern.
The ruling understands that “the seriousness” of the threats is not “excluded” by the fact that the defendant did not have weapons or the caliber he mentions does not exist, “an almost childish statement.” “Pretending that the messages do not contain a clear incitement to violence is a true and authentic nonsense,” he concludes.
Freedom of expression
“Talking about freedom of expression in this context has no reason to be,” the magistrate ruling, who uses the criteria of the Constitutional Court regarding this right and its “limited nature, particularly, that derived from demonstrations that encourage violence.” with the requirement of having generated “a situation of risk for the persons or rights of third parties or for the freedom system itself.” “The messages,” he argues, “have an undoubtedly intimidating nature of explicit content, so explicit that the addressee is mentioned by name and surname, messages that, no matter how much they want to give, go beyond a simple political attack.”
The magistrate thus rejects the defense argument, as she rejects the mitigating compensation for damage by deleting the tweets the day after they were published. It notes that the removal did not lessen the “intimidation and unrest” created. “Rather, it seems that he deleted the messages due to the repercussion of their content, without at any time having made an effort in relation to the victim, seeking to reassure his mind with the very serious content,” reason, the magistrate, who also denies the defense the mitigating of undue delays.
– .
