Pablo Ibar’s defense maintains that there is still no “solid” evidence to maintain life imprisonment
It also ensures that the chain of custody was broken in the DNA test and that the main prosecution witness was influenced by the police.
MADRID, 1 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Pablo Ibar’s lawyer, Joe Nascimento, questioned this Tuesday before the Court of Appeals for the 4th Judicial District of Florida, based in West Palm Beach, the value of the evidence used in the last trial in which Ibar He was sentenced to life imprisonment, so he does not consider that there is “solid” evidence to maintain the sentence. However, the Prosecutor’s Office has opposed these arguments requesting its confirmation.
Nascimento has asked the three magistrates that make up the Chamber to annul the sentence that has fallen on Ibar since 2019 and to hold a new trial with “all legal guarantees.”
On the other hand, the Prosecutor’s Office has opposed the defense’s request and has requested confirmation of the sentence, as reported by the Pablo Ibar-Fair Trial Association in a statement collected by Europa Press.
Ibar is currently sentenced to remain in prison for life, after he was found guilty in 2019 of a triple murder in the United States, whose authorship he has always denied.
The hearing began at two in the afternoon local time in the state of Florida (8:00 p.m. in Spain) and was held by videoconference, in which Ibar’s defense supported their request to annul the sentence on twelve grounds, among which he has highlighted the irregularities that were committed during the process that ended with Ibar’s conviction three years ago, as well as the decisions of “absolute bias” incurred by Judge Dennis Bailey, who directed the hearing.
Among these twelve exposed reasons, the lawyer has questioned precisely the existence of a “tiny” DNA sample belonging to Pablo Ibar in a shirt that was found at the scene of the events and that was carried by one of the perpetrators of the crime and that Prosecutor incorporated “unexpectedly” before the start of the last trial. Until that moment, all the analyzes carried out had been negative regarding remains linked to Ibar.
In this regard, Nascimento has indicated that the chain of custody was “very defective” and that the analysis laboratory had received the shirt in a bag with the seal partially open.
In the same way, the lawyer has questioned before the room the veracity of the testimony of a resident of the area where the crimes were perpetrated named Gary Foy, who was key for the Prosecutor’s Office after stating that he saw Ibar sitting in the seat of the co-driver of Casimir Sucharski’s Mercedes car.
In addition, the lawyer has stressed that the police officers were the ones who led the witness to a “substantial probability of erroneous identification” through a photograph, for which reason he has considered that it is “not at all reliable” evidence.
The lawyer has also referred to the actions of magistrate Dennis Bailey, who directed the last trial in Broward County, and whom he accuses of “abusing his discretion.” He has criticized the judge for removing one of his members from the jury, who denounced having suffered pressure from his colleagues, a fact that he made public on social networks. “He should have at least inquired into whether there was actual abuse or pressure or whether it was merely the normal vehemence of a jury argument,” he said.
After Nascimento, the representative of the Prosecutor’s Office, Deborah Koenig, has taken the floor, who has maintained that the judicial process was adjusted “at all times” to legality.
Likewise, he has argued that in the case of the expelled jury, the judge had made the correct decision and that the courts should not intervene in what are the internal discussions of a jury.
After the appeal hearing, a period of deliberation is opened between the members of the court. A phase that can last several months and it is not ruled out that the ruling will take a year to be known. In the event that the appeal is not successful in this instance, the defense will go to the Supreme Court of Florida.
Ibar has recently been transferred from the Okeechobee (Florida) prison, where he had been since his death sentence was commuted to life, to another private facility, where he carries out various activities and has started a welding course.
Pablo Ibar was found guilty of the triple crime that in June 1994 ended the lives of Casimir Sucharski, owner of a nightclub and owner of the chalet where the crimes were perpetrated, and of the young Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers.
The three were killed by two individuals who broke into the house. The sequence of events was recorded by a video camera located in the living room of the house, which, at a certain moment, captured the face of a young man with Latino features that the Police identified as Pablo Ibar.
However, in the last trial held in 2018-2019, it was proven, even by prosecution experts, that this video did not have sufficient image quality to make any identification.
