Son of accused in Porroig threats trial denies father’s involvement and absence from trial

He assured, to the questions of E.S.C.’s lawyer, that his father was in Barcelona when the denounced facts took place. According to him, he had traveled to Barcelona to help him move an apartment. He did not offer, however, any reason or theory when the magistrate asked him what explanation he gave for the police identifying his father, who appears as the author of the facts in the statement.

The accused did not appear at the Court of Instruction number 2, which hosted the session. His defense alleges that “he does not have to confess anything”, since he defends his innocence, and therefore requests his acquittal. The lawyer representing E.S.C. defended that there are no records to prove his involvement. In this sense, he considered that the accused was not satisfactorily identified, since, he pointed out, only one of the two surnames was registered. “No one has identified the perpetrator. An identification procedure that has not been ratified in the trial is worthless,” he argued. He also highlighted the absence of graphic evidence to support the indictment of E.S.C. Thus, his lawyer maintains that the case should have been closed.

From the environmental platform of seabed monitoring Maltesa del Mar pointed out that they will provide a video that proves the authorship of E.S.C. of the crime of threats of which he is accused, a record that they have not previously provided for fear that it would be leaked, despite the obligatory data protection.

The members of Maltesa del MAR defend that they were snorkeling to carry out a superficial inspection in Porroig when E.S.C. appeared on board an outboard motorboat that approached very close to them, and began to harass them to leave the area, with the threat that he would run them over with the motorboat.

The complainant specified in the trial a detail that the complaint does not include and that involves more individuals in the episode of harassment. According to him, “at a given moment” a boat with the same characteristics appeared “with three people, two men and a woman, who began to rebuke us in the same way. One on one side and the other on the other made us a kind of sandwich two meters away” from where they were, he emphasized, to urge them to leave.

A witness who is also part of Maltesa del Mar defended that behind the attitude of the businessman denounced in this process was the underlying motivation to hide the activities that he allegedly develops in the bay of Porroig. “I think he reacted that way because he considered that we were doing something that could cause him some problem about what he is doing and does,” said this witness. She then clarified that he pursued them, in her opinion, for “recording the dead on top of the posidonia and the anchorages that are made in an irregular way”. For his part, the other member of Maltesa del Mar chosen to testify on behalf of the complainant said that, since the events occurred, he has not returned to Porroig – neither as an investigator nor as a bather – “I do not feel at ease,” he said.

The complaint

As stated in the complaint and reiterated in court by the members of Maltesa del Mar, E.S.C. allegedly threatened to run over them with his boat. “I don’t want to see you here again, I have insurance, so I’ll run over you [con la lancha]i’ll kill you and nothing will happen,” he allegedly warned them. The members of the organization defend that E.S.C. chased them to the shore, and that once outside, the harassment continued to a parking lot near the beach. They add that the accused was filming them and, the complainant said in court, they feared that he would record the license plates of their vehicles. E.S.C. also allegedly pushed a member of the platform after calling her a “spittoon”, they say.

E.S.C. was arrested in February after trying to prevent the City Council of Sant Josep from removing three boats (one of them his property) stored on the shoulder of the road to Cala Tarida, just three meters from the roadway and right next to his property, where he has created a huge landfill.