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1ST - 7TH SEPTEMBER 2020 - EDITION 854
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Elche couple on trial for killing toddler son See Main Advert on page 31
The prosecution service is asking for a permanent prison sentence for a mother and her boyfriend, aged 27 and 29, who beat and strangled her two year old son in the family home. The child died after four days in intensive care.
Lawyer Marcos García-Montes, acting on behalf of the child’s biological father is calling for a reviewable permanent prison sentence of 28 years, 25 for murder and three for habitual ill-treatment. The trial began yesterday in the seventh section of the Alicante Provincial Court, based in Elche, with the election of the jury, and in principle it is expected that the case will last until Friday. On 13th September, two years ago, the defendants were at the family home on Manuel Ruiz Magro street in the city of Elche when at one point in the morning it is claimed that the child, whose name was Aarón, behaved so badly that it left the defendants "so upset that they found no better way to correct him than to beat him”, according to the prosecutor's brief. Whether it was a joint beating or only the stepfather but "with the knowledge and consent" of the biological mother,
the public prosecutor maintains that the defendant/s "seized the child with great violence and while yelling at him, beat him with slaps and punches that were really hard.” In addition, they held him tightly and "smash him against the wall" which caused an extensive bruise and other injuries of varying degrees in the toddler, although the cause of death was not these injuries but the subsequent strangulation. "After the defendants plunged into the violence of the beating, they grabbed him by the neck, squeezing him with such force that they caused the child to suffocate, preventing him from breathing until he fainted due to lack of oxygen," according to the court papers. The prosecutor reports that, only when the child became unconscious, did the Continued on page 2
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