MADRID, 7 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Luis Lorenzo and Arantxa Palomino testify tomorrow before the Investigating Judge number 9 of Arganda del Rey to clarify the circumstances in which María Isabel Asunción died and after requesting to appear voluntarily after the Civil Guard did not find cadmium in her home.
The actor and his wife are being investigated for being the alleged perpetrators of the death of the old woman, whose autopsy report concluded the presence of levels of cadmium and manganese above normal.
The couple was arrested last May by the Civil Guard following a complaint by the victim’s brother. Shortly after, the complainant ratified the accusation against her relatives, whom he blames for the alleged murder of Isabel to seize her inheritance, arguing that when she was in Grado (Asturias) she had no pathology except deafness and cataracts.
The judge has doubts about the poisoning due to the possibility that the old woman died naturally due to a post-mortem redistribution of chemical substances, a hypothesis supported by several scientific studies.
To clarify this point, he questioned the director of the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences, Antonio Alonso, a few weeks ago.
When the case was uncovered, this organization published on its networks the conclusions of two scientific studies on corpses from the United States and China, with very high levels of cadmium in the blood due to a natural redistribution of cadmium as a result of their decomposition.
Antonio Alonso presented this theory to the judge, collected in an article in a 2010 scientific journal and something that was raised last June by a head of the Chemistry Service of the Madrid Department of the INTCF.
The request for a statement was made after a report from the Department of the Environment of the Criminalistics Service of the Civil Guard concluded that there is no presence of cadmium in the samples seized in the actor’s house.
According to the autopsy, María Isabel would have died of “acute intoxication by heavy metals”. The amount of cadmium –present in paint– would be 200 times higher than the normal limit, while the concentration of manganese –present in cells and batteries– found in the body is twenty times higher than usual.
Recently, the defense of those investigated filed a brief before the judge to request the voluntary declaration of marriage and request the annulment of part of the proceedings for violation of fundamental rights.
In the brief, the couple’s lawyer denounced the breach of procedural guarantees with violation of the right to defense, and under article 11 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary (LOPJ), requests that the nullity of the investigation actions contained in the extension proceedings 83/2022.
It would be the annulment of the extension proceedings carried out last June by the Civil Guard, which consisted of interrogations of relatives of those investigated, including the circle of Palomino with “certain enmity” towards the investigated.
Apparently, the statements would have been made behind the backs of the defense of Luis Lorenzo and Arantxa Palomino, which would have left them defenseless.
