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Authors: Sergio Vila-Sanjuán
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lives and property, and for this the prosecutor asked for life imprisonment.
It was an aunt of El Chimo’s, a barmaid at a tavern near my home and office, who asked me to defend the boy. At first I refused to take the case due to the extremism with which it was associated, but my maid, Lucinda, who was essential to my domestic organization and a friend of the barmaid’s, hounded me for days until I caved in and agreed to speak to El Chimo at El Modelo prison.
Speaking to him was a poignant experience. El Chimo was an apple-cheeked child who had grown up too fast; he had chestnut hair, fiery eyes, and a spindly frame. He related to me a long series of misadventures on the street since his mother had abandoned him at age nine (he had never known his father), and the endless stratagems he had had to invent just to survive living in Barcelona’s tragic and seamy underbelly. His aunt at the bar gave him food and shelter from time to time, but he spent his days on the streets, pilfering and purloining, running errands for burglars, decoys, and pickpockets, finding customers for a couple of brothels, and working as an errand boy for certain owners of seedy cabarets, who paid him in
aguardiente
. “But I have never, ever killed anyone,” he assured me, “and I never took any bomb anywhere—at least, notknowingly.” It was difficult to believe him entirely, however, as he had a pronounced tendency to contradict himself and offer conflicting versions of the same events. Because the entire case rested upon his confession to the police, I insisted again and again that he explain to me why he had confessed if he had really not been involved in the incident, but I was unable to get a clear answer about what happened. This was not surprising because, as he explained to me, he had been drinking hard liquor all morning before he ended up at the police station.
His stay in the prison was proving to be an ordeal. On the first day, when the inmates were released into the yard, a group of veteran convicts had surrounded him and backed him against a wall. The strongest and most terrifying of them all had abused him. “He raped me,” El Chimo confessed, with tears in his eyes. After our conversation I went to protest in the strongest terms, paying a visit to my friend Oteyza, the prison warden, who told me that until a center for minors was created these incidents were as unfortunate as they were “almost inevitable,” promising me that they would keep a closer eye out in order to protect my client. I am not sure to what extent that promise was ever fulfilled.
El Chimo’s trial was held in the Provincial Court of Barcelona, located in the Palace of Justice, where I was a frequent visitor. The imposing building, the work of architects Enrique Sagnier and José Doménech, had been constructed in order to house numerous courts of varying levels which had hitherto been scattered around the entire city. It had been functioning for a dozen years, and I liked to hear the clacking of my shiny shoes as I crossed the Salón de los Pasos Perdidos, with its allegorical paintings in green, golden, and ochre tones, dressed in my lawyer’s garb on my way to one of my appearances in court.
Presiding over the trial was magistrate Felipe Gallo, a most dour character. It was a jury trial, and the kind that attracted public attention. On the first day the prosecutor, who began byevoking the motto of the
somatenes,
the volunteer police corps: “
pau, pau i sempre pau
,” (peace, peace, and always peace), presented as evidence the statements of twenty witnesses, four doctors and two experts. It took two sessions just to hear all of them.
The defendants gave their statements under shafts of light pouring in from the large picture windows. Their testimony lay at the crux of the whole trial, especially that which related to the confession El Chimo had given the police immediately after being arrested, as the other defendant, Rosa Mestres, never
It was an aunt of El Chimo’s, a barmaid at a tavern near my home and office, who asked me to defend the boy. At first I refused to take the case due to the extremism with which it was associated, but my maid, Lucinda, who was essential to my domestic organization and a friend of the barmaid’s, hounded me for days until I caved in and agreed to speak to El Chimo at El Modelo prison.
Speaking to him was a poignant experience. El Chimo was an apple-cheeked child who had grown up too fast; he had chestnut hair, fiery eyes, and a spindly frame. He related to me a long series of misadventures on the street since his mother had abandoned him at age nine (he had never known his father), and the endless stratagems he had had to invent just to survive living in Barcelona’s tragic and seamy underbelly. His aunt at the bar gave him food and shelter from time to time, but he spent his days on the streets, pilfering and purloining, running errands for burglars, decoys, and pickpockets, finding customers for a couple of brothels, and working as an errand boy for certain owners of seedy cabarets, who paid him in
aguardiente
. “But I have never, ever killed anyone,” he assured me, “and I never took any bomb anywhere—at least, notknowingly.” It was difficult to believe him entirely, however, as he had a pronounced tendency to contradict himself and offer conflicting versions of the same events. Because the entire case rested upon his confession to the police, I insisted again and again that he explain to me why he had confessed if he had really not been involved in the incident, but I was unable to get a clear answer about what happened. This was not surprising because, as he explained to me, he had been drinking hard liquor all morning before he ended up at the police station.
His stay in the prison was proving to be an ordeal. On the first day, when the inmates were released into the yard, a group of veteran convicts had surrounded him and backed him against a wall. The strongest and most terrifying of them all had abused him. “He raped me,” El Chimo confessed, with tears in his eyes. After our conversation I went to protest in the strongest terms, paying a visit to my friend Oteyza, the prison warden, who told me that until a center for minors was created these incidents were as unfortunate as they were “almost inevitable,” promising me that they would keep a closer eye out in order to protect my client. I am not sure to what extent that promise was ever fulfilled.
El Chimo’s trial was held in the Provincial Court of Barcelona, located in the Palace of Justice, where I was a frequent visitor. The imposing building, the work of architects Enrique Sagnier and José Doménech, had been constructed in order to house numerous courts of varying levels which had hitherto been scattered around the entire city. It had been functioning for a dozen years, and I liked to hear the clacking of my shiny shoes as I crossed the Salón de los Pasos Perdidos, with its allegorical paintings in green, golden, and ochre tones, dressed in my lawyer’s garb on my way to one of my appearances in court.
Presiding over the trial was magistrate Felipe Gallo, a most dour character. It was a jury trial, and the kind that attracted public attention. On the first day the prosecutor, who began byevoking the motto of the
somatenes,
the volunteer police corps: “
pau, pau i sempre pau
,” (peace, peace, and always peace), presented as evidence the statements of twenty witnesses, four doctors and two experts. It took two sessions just to hear all of them.
The defendants gave their statements under shafts of light pouring in from the large picture windows. Their testimony lay at the crux of the whole trial, especially that which related to the confession El Chimo had given the police immediately after being arrested, as the other defendant, Rosa Mestres, never
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