National Police Commissioner Jesús Figón was sentenced by Brazilian justice to 9 years, 4 months and 15 days in prison for the murder of his wife, Rosemary Justino Lopez, a citizen of this country and with whom he lived in St. A city from Vitoria (Espirito Santo state capital). The crime happened while Figón was stationed as an internal attaché at the Spanish embassy in Brazil, which meant he was not even arrested because he enjoyed diplomatic immunity.
Jesús Figón, now retired and living in Spain, was found guilty Thursday afternoon (local time) by a court in the state of Espirito Santo of simple murder. According to A Gazeta. Prosecutors had initially sought an 11-year sentence, which was reduced to a little over a year and a half because the court heard that Figoni “acted with violent emotions following the unjust provocation of the victim.” Leonardo Augusto Cesar, representative of the Public Ministry, explained.
Jesus Figon surrendered to the local Vitoria Police on May 12, 2015. He admitted to the agents that he killed his wife during an argument. Rosemary Justino Lopez, 50 years old and of Brazilian nationality, died from five wounds. The commissar claims that when he returned home, he found him sleeping and attacked him with a knife. A woman was killed during the fight, always according to the police version.
The verdict of the first criminal stick of the region of Vitoria establishes that Figon tried to change the scene of the crime in order to impose responsibility. “The accused has a law degree from the University of Salamanca and holds the highest police rank (in Brazil it would be the equivalent of colonel of the military police), holding the 4th position in a corps of 80,000 agents. This means that all the changes in the crime scene were carefully thought out by the accused, a deep knowledge and expert in criminal investigations,” said the ruling, which elDiario.es had access to.
The day after the crime, the then foreign minister, José Manuel García Margallo, announced that Spain would withdraw the diplomatic immunity that Figón enjoyed if it was confirmed that the investigation was for a sexist crime. Immunity, Spain’s foreign minister said, “can in no way be an alibi for such heinous acts as the one under investigation there.”
The reality was that Figón was not even removed from his position as the interior ministry’s top representative in Brazil, and Spain only revoked his “immunity from jurisdiction,” allowing the South American country to investigate and prosecute. Spanish police. “Retaining immunity from execution,” the police officer was transferred to Spain to serve the sentence imposed by the penitentiary without ever setting foot in a Brazilian prison.
He continued to earn €11,000 a month
However, the benefits for Figon did not end there. After the crime, Jesús Figón continued to serve as Minister of the Interior at the Spanish Embassy in Brazil, receiving a full salary of approximately 11,000 euros per month. The situation did not change when Brazilian prosecutors filed formal charges in September 2015, four months after the alleged murder.
On January 23, 2016, Figoni turned 65 and retired. The commissioner could not continue to accredit diplomatic staff in the country where he killed his wife. It was then that the department, then headed by Jorge Fernandez Díaz, proposed his appointment as an “Advisory Counselor” at the Embassy of the Interior. foreign received. In this way, Figon retained the status of “diplomatic agent”. Figón’s job, police sources told elDiario.es, was to advise his successor. In 2019, as revealed by elDiario.es, Figon returned to Spain.
The couple met in Spain and had been married for thirty years when the crime happened. Figoni was appointed in Brazil in 2012, after the victory of the PP. The commissioner was defended pro bono by Ilocad, an office headed by former judge and current attorney Baltasar Garzon.
Days after her mother’s death, the couple’s only daughter raised the possibility that her father could be tried in Spain. He filed a complaint with the national court, which was accepted by Judge Eloy Velasco: a Spanish citizen allegedly committed a crime abroad and a special court was competent to investigate him. But Brazilian prosecutors told Spanish prosecutors that a case was already open in the South American country, according to sources at the National Court, prompting Velasco to temporarily drop the case after he filed charges and called a police officer to testify.
The Brazilian prosecutor’s office explained that the decision does not yet intend to be formally transferred to Spanish justice, as there is an appeal. Figon’s defense has already requested the necessary documentation to present him. In fact, there are three courts of appeal in Brazil: the Court of Justice (TJ), the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) and the Federal Supreme Court (STF). Figon followed the two-day trial via video conference.
Source: El Diario
