The Superior Court of Justice of Madrid confirmed the maximum sentence for Portuguese Micael da Silva Montoya for fatally running over four guests in 2022 at a wedding in Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid), reported this Friday, March 6, the Efe agency.
The court ratified the two life sentences and the 126 years in prison imposed, wrote the Spanish news agency, which had access to the sentence.
The court rejected the appeals filed against the court’s decision, which convicted the man of four counts of murder and nine counts of attempted murder. – caused a total of nine injuries – after running over several guests who were at the door of the El Rancho restaurant, where the wedding was celebrated on November 6, 2022.
Micael da Silva, known as “the Portuguese”, was sentenced to two permanent prison terms, reevaluated periodically, a sentence provided for in the Spanish Penal Code that can translate, in practice, into life imprisonment if it is never changed by the judges in successive reevaluations.
Compensation to the victims of more than 1.3 million euros was also imposed, with the Insurance Compensation Consorcio being civilly liable.
The magistrates now confirm this conviction and reject, firstly, the defendant’s appeal, which alleged violation of the right to the presumption of innocence and questioned the assessment of the evidence carried out by the jury. They state that the appeal intends to “impose their assessment of the evidence in relation to that which was carried out” correctly.
The judges argue that the Portuguese carried out a “surprising and sudden attack, impossible to predict by the victims”, who were defenseless, and after which the accused fled without providing assistance.
“The multiplicity of direct evidence and indications existing in the process and their temporal, spatial and logical combination allow us to support the jury’s conclusion as prevailing over the proposed alternatives”, add the magistrates when arguing that the jury’s verdict and sentence were well founded.
The magistrates also reject the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s appeal to aggravate the penalties imposed for the attempted murders, deciding that the calculation is legally appropriate.
The Public Prosecutor’s complaint stated that the defendant, with a criminal record, went to a wedding party in Torrejón de Ardoz, with two children and two nephews, having had an incident inside the restaurant, which is why the group was asked to leave the place, in the early hours of November 6, 2022.
The argument continued outside the restaurant and it was then, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, that the accused went to the car that had parked nearby and “accelerated the engine, knowing the presence of the people gathered there”.
“With complete desire to cause their death or assuming the possibility that this would happen, he ran over several of them”, says the document.
A 66-year-old woman, two men, aged 68 and 37, and a minor, aged 17, all Spanish, died in the collision.
Micael da Silva was tried by a popular jury, which found him guilty on June 3.
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