Eight years for attempting to kill another prisoner with a modified pen

In April 2024, an inmate at the Alicante I jail in the Fontcalent district tried to kill another inmate by stabbing him in the neck with a modified pen in a common area of the prison. He was sentenced to eight years in prison for this crime.

The judgement from the Third Section of the Alicante Court says that the two inmates had had fights before the incident, therefore the prison relocated the defendant from module 11 to 1 to avoid “subsequent confrontations.”

But the court said that the accused took advantage of the fact that the inmate he was fighting with was in a shared unit and was going through a bureaucratic process to get the medication he was taking. He then attacked him with a pen that had been changed to look like a knife.

According to the verdict, the attack put the victim’s life in jeopardy because the utensil was stuck in the back of the neck, where “vascular-nerve and respiratory structures” are located. The victim had to have emergency surgery.

The verdict says that following the attack, the accused walked to another room and changed his clothes. However, he was quickly identified and caught since a prison officer had seen the whole thing. The prison’s security cameras also caught the incident on tape.

The defendant, who is from Colombia, partly admitted to the facts during his testimony at the trial on the 17th. He said that two days before the incident, the victim had hit him, which led to a brawl that two prison guards had to break up.

He also confessed to the attack, although he said he meant to “hit her in the back” and that he hit her in the wrong location. He also said that the pen was normal and that he hadn’t changed it in any way. He said he acted because he thought the victim “was coming for him.”

The court finds the defendant guilty of attempted murder based on all the evidence given, including the testimony of the prison guard who was there during the attack and the inspection of the CCTV cameras. The defendant will serve eight years in jail.

In addition to another five years of supervised release, it also puts a restraining order on the victim that says they must stay at least 500 metres away for 20 years.

The court verdict says that the defendant must pay the aggrieved person 2,076.40 euros, and the Penitentiary Institutions will be responsible for this amount.

You have ten days from the time you get the sentence to appeal it to the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJCV).