A questionable verdict
A family man was convicted of a robbery with violence and intimidation in a farmhouse in Almería, despite the fact that only one of the four victims identified him in an identification parade as one of the attackers. This sole identification became the main evidence against him, despite the lack of other conclusive evidence.
The incident at the farmhouse
The incident took place on the Tarambana farm, in El Ejido (Almería), where three armed assailants broke in, threatened the guards and demanded the keys to the warehouse. After a confrontation, one of the victims managed to restrain one of the thieves, while the other two managed to escape.
The only proof
The verdict was based mainly on the statement of one of the victims, since the other three could not identify the accused as one of the assailants. This single identification became the basis for El Houcine Nmeg’s conviction, despite his lack of police record and his long residence in Spain.
Reliability issues
The defendant’s lawyer has questioned the reliability of the identification, pointing out that the judge did not order DNA analysis of certain evidence found at the scene of the robbery. Furthermore, it has been reported that the identification parade was flawed, since the victim was again exposed to the photograph of the accused before identifying him, which could have conditioned her recognition.
New tests
Recently, new evidence has been discovered that supports the defendant’s alibi. Bank records indicate that at the time of the robbery, Nmeg was 14 kilometers from the farm, withdrawing money from an ATM in Santa María del Águila. However, this evidence arrived too late, as the bank’s security camera recordings had already been deleted.
Fight for justice
Nmeg’s lawyer is fighting for a review of the case before the Constitutional Court, arguing that it is a serious miscarriage of justice that could send an innocent man to prison. The importance of analyzing the reliability of visual identifications in judicial cases has been highlighted, and the need for legal reforms has been pointed out to avoid convictions based solely on this type of evidence.
