Zaragoza court upholds prison term and cuts police compensation

Spain’s judiciary announced on Tuesday that the Audiencia Provincial de Zaragoza had upheld an eleven-month prison sentence for a man convicted of attacking and injuring a Policía Nacional officer at Delicias station. The appeal court nevertheless reduced the civil compensation from €3,600 to €2,700 after finding an error in the injury record.

The sentence covers the offences of attacking a public authority and causing injury. The ruling is not yet beyond further challenge: an appeal on points of law may be lodged with the Tribunal Supremo.

Three police interventions

The case began when the man tried to board an AVE train without paying for a ticket. National Police officers recorded that intervention. Minutes later, they were called to the station’s bus terminal after a driver complained that the man was disturbing passengers, and officers made a second report.

About an hour after the first incident, another bus driver contacted police when the man again attempted to travel without paying. As officers removed him from the premises, he pushed one of them into a wall, threatened him and fractured the end bone of the officer’s left thumb, according to the proven facts described by the court.

The judiciary’s account says the man was strongly affected by alcohol. The provincial court found that the trial judge had assessed the evidence in accordance with the law and left the criminal convictions and prison term unchanged.

Medical-record error changes damages

The partial success of the appeal concerned only civil liability. Police and forensic reports showed that the fracture suffered during the incident was in the officer’s left thumb. However, the original judgment also attributed a lasting injury to the right thumb because an error in the first medical report had not been corrected.

The appeal judges said the evidence did not establish a connection between that right-thumb condition and the events at Delicias. Compensation could therefore not be awarded for it. They deducted the €900 assigned to that element, reducing the officer’s total award by a quarter.

Conviction remains subject to appeal

The ruling leaves the man’s eleven-month prison sentence in place for the two offences. It changes neither the finding that he attacked the officer nor the finding that the officer suffered the left-thumb fracture. The remaining route identified by the court release is an appeal on points of law before Spain’s Supreme Court.

Source: Consejo General del Poder Judicial.