LOCAL NEWS
June 3rd - June 9th 2011
MANUEL Rodríguel M will have to spend 13 years in prison for the attempted murder of his ex-wife and her parents near their home in the Santa Cruz borough of El Sobradillo on the 3rd of December 2008. The 5th Section of the Audiencia Provincial (regional court) has ruled that the accused must compensate his ex-partner and two children with the amount of 14,880€ in the concept of civil responsibility and medical costs for treatment of the wounds inflicted during the attack. The accused was also tried and condemned for the crime of physical and physiological violence. The convict, who had been in preventative custody since the 5th of December 2008, has also been given a restraining order, which forbids him from having any contact with his exwife or siblings for a minimum of 10 years following his release from prison.
Manuel Rodriguez’s partner decided to break their relationship in January 2008 after she and her children returned to Tenerife from the Dominican Republic, where they have been living since August of 2007. Although the relationship had ended, the accused continued harassing the victim via mobile phone, sending her no less than 13 messages on the day the attack took place, as stated on the sentence which has now been made public. The attack happened on the 3rd of December 2008 when the accused, after consuming alcohol, cocaine and armed with a knife, waited for his expartner outside her parent’s
Man sentenced to 13 years in prison for stabbing ex-wife and parents-in-law. house in El Sobradillo. According to the courts, “He had chosen a serrated knife, one of those used for cutting meat, with an 11.5cm blade” The attack took place at 9:30pm as the victim returned home from a driving lesson. At that moment Manuel approached her with knife in hand, pounced and rustled her to
the ground and tried to kill her. The victim’s screams were heard by her parents, who tried to help. First the victim’s father tried to push the attacker away and received cuts on the face, chest and thorax. The victim’s mother also attacked by Manuel and suffered wounds in the right and left lumbar areas. A driving school teacher
heard the screams and went to their aid. He hit the aggressor with the driving school sign. His intervention was crucial as he stopped the aggression and forced the attacker to flee the area. Manuel tried to stab himself and hide the knife in a tree and then asked for help in a nearby petrol station where he claimed that
he had been attacked. By the time police arrived they were aware of the assault and arrested him at the scene. The victim spent 30 days in hospital and suffers from post traumatic stress; her father’s wounds took 4 months to heal, while her mother had to stay in hospital for 8 days.
The Cabildo allocate 202,000 euros in grants for training
THE Cabildo de Tenerife, together with the Youth, Education and Equality association, adopted new rules and regulations and called for three types of scholarships with an allocated budget of 202,000 Euros. The new measure is intended to facilitate activities to encourage reading, school gardens and environmental mediation in sex education and gender. This initiative was approved by the Gov-
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erning Council held on Tuesday 31st under the chairmanship of the vice president in office, José Manuel Bermúdez. Moreover, within the area approved the task of public enterprise management to carry Ideco Island Animation Program for Reading and Study Skills (PIALTE) during the school year 2011/2012. PIALTE develops within the island and has participants from all mu-
nicipalities of the island thus carried out several actions aimed at schoolchildren and their families as storytelling, puppet show and Puppet Theater, exhibitions and family workshops. The objective is to promote and implement PIALTE reading habits in the population of the island of Tenerife and during the 2010/2011 academic year have benefited some 10,000 schoolchildren.
The Cabildo building in Santa Cruz de Tenerife
The “nonconformists” propose to give blood en mass.
“Don´t let then suck your blood, give it away!” That is the motto of the campaign that was adopted by the group “Real Democracy” (15M) on Wednesday the 1st of June in La Candelaria Square in central Santa Cruz. The 15M movement which remains camped in La Candelaria Square promoted this action on the 1st of June with the slogan, whilst trying to raise aware-
ness about the importance of donating blood. They state that their argument is based on the nature of the ruthless and “blood sucking” economic regime, where the majority of families have their lives put on hold and chained to a cruel dependency generated by the powerful; with exploitation instruments such as mortgages, low salaries, unemployment, social exclusion, welfare cuts, mar-
ginality and the increasing plight of young people and pensioners. According to this group, it is necessary to stay put and raise your head. The nonconformists invited the general public to actively participate in this proposal to give “a lesson of solidarity and to reject exploitation” The blood donation took place at 9:00am and lasted all day.
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