After seven years of legal proceedings opened for the death of young Iliass Tahiri at the Tierras de Oria juvenile detention center (Almería), a new postponement delays the family’s wish for “justice to be served.” The new date for the oral trial, set this Thursday by Judge Urko Liendo, in Criminal Court number 2 of Almería, will be next June 12. Previously, the magistrate will have to issue the corresponding order to gather and admit the evidence, which includes witnesses and images recorded by security cameras, where the entire containment maneuver carried out by the six guards of the center was recorded and which culminated in the death of the boy, who had just turned 18.
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He died suffocated with his head and body crushed face down against a cot, with six security guards on top of him immobilizing him and tying him with straps in a room. It happened on July 1, 2019, during siesta time.
The Iliass Tahiri case brought to light the procedures and abuses suffered by boys interned in juvenile centers. It sparked strong controversy and a debate that led to the intervention and a report by the Ombudsman, prohibiting such practices.
The Ginso association, which has managed the Oria center and a good part of those existing in that province and in other autonomous communities for the Junta de Andalucía for more than a decade, had accumulated complaints for this type of action and more than one case resulting in death. However, neither the leaders of that controversial association nor those of the Junta de Andalucía will sit in the dock after having managed to get the corresponding insurers to pay civil liability (190,000 euros for Iliass’s mother and four siblings). Only three guards and their coordinator are currently prosecuted in this case, in which a total of 13 people have been investigated.
Judge Liendo’s last order summoned the parties to reach a settlement agreement or a postponement this Thursday. But neither the prosecution, exercised by lawyer Ángel Gómez San José on behalf of the deceased’s family —who requests four years in prison for the accused for negligent homicide—, nor the defense of three of the guards —who asks for their “acquittal” considering it “an accidental violent death”— have wanted to reach an agreement.
Finally, after three attempts to dismiss the case as “accidental violent death” and as many reopenings, the oral trial —scheduled for October 2024— was to be held this April 23. However, in line with the innumerable delays suffered in this procedure (due to the death of a minor), it will now be in June. “This is unsettling for everyone,” said Gómez San José, “with the consequent wear and suffering for the family,” he added.
The Prosecutor’s Office’s Changes
The Prosecutor’s Office, at the time, went from considering that a crime of negligent homicide should be judged, prosecuting those responsible for the Ginso company and the Junta de Andalucía —as requested by prosecutor Carlos Castresana in June 2019—, to understanding that it should be “transformed” into a “trial for a minor offense.” “We understand that the conduct developed by the investigated parties could constitute less serious negligence. In such a case, we would be facing a crime of homicide due to less serious negligence, typified in article 142.2 of the Penal Code, and punishable with a fine of three to 18 months,” it argued.
Despite not having the protection of the Prosecutor’s Office, lawyer Ángel Gómez San José has never given up, filing appeal after appeal: when the case was dismissed, when the judge and prosecutor intended for the case to be tried as “a minor offense” and not as “negligent homicide,” or when they inexplicably “forgot” to include among the accused the guard who pressed his leg against Iliass’s head and back during the deadly containment maneuver that lasted almost 14 minutes, although Iliass took four minutes to die, according to the forensic report.
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