He accepts a ten-year prison sentence for the man accused of killing a roommate and dumping the body in a suitcase.

BarcelonaA last-minute plea agreement has annulled the trial of the man accused of killing a roommate to whom he sublet a room. The defendant, WMA, admitted to the crime as described in the prosecution's indictment and admitted that after killing the victim, he dismembered the body and hid the torso inside a suitcase. She ended up being found by a homeless man who was moving the container from Barcelona's Eixample where he had thrown it.. Thus, the man has accepted a sentence of ten years and three months in prison for homicide and desecration of a corpse. In both crimes, the fact that the defendant suffered from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder at the time of the crime was considered a mitigating factor.

The plea agreement was reached this Monday, when the jury for the case was to be selected at the Barcelona Court. The court will reflect this agreement in a written sentence in the coming days. The trial was expected to continue until early next week, and the man faced a sentence of twelve years and three months, as requested by the Prosecutor's Office. The plea agreement, which avoided trial, also means that, once released from prison, the defendant will have to spend five more years on probation.

As described in the Prosecutor's indictment, WMA began subletting a bedroom to the victim on November 21, 2022. The crime took place approximately two days later, on November 23, in the same apartment. The public prosecution had not detailed the motives or circumstances in which the crime was allegedly committed, beyond stating that WMA acted "violently" and with the intention of killing him. It also emphasizes that, in order to erase any trace of the crime, he acted "disrespectfully to the victim" when he cut her body into pieces.

The prosecutor's brief also does not specify the date on which the accused allegedly began trying to dispose of the body, but states that in the days following the victim's death, the accused removed "various effects and bags" from the apartment, including the suitcase that he left in a container at the intersection of Roma Avenue. Inside were several bags containing the victim's torso, covered with a T-shirt, and various gardening and irrigation system items. It wasn't until the morning of November 29 that a homeless man rummaging through the dumpster made the discovery.

Mental health mitigation

A key aspect in clarifying WMA's criminal responsibility in this case has been his mental health. The Prosecutor's Office already added in its indictment that, at the time of the crime, the man "presented chronic and secondary post-traumatic stress disorder that could have slightly diminished his cognitive and volitional abilities." Therefore, the Prosecutor's Office itself anticipated that a mitigating circumstance for mental disturbance could be applied, as the agreement ultimately stipulated.

The trial was scheduled to begin this Monday morning with the selection of the nine members of the jury. The prosecutor in the case, Elena Contreras, and the defendant's attorney, Carlos Díaz, were summoned to choose. No charges have been filed in the case on behalf of the victim's family, and so far, the court has not been able to contact the deceased's sister, who lives in Iran, despite attempts made through the consulate. Therefore, another point included in Monday's agreement is the reservation of civil actions in favor of the sister: if she is contacted, she will be able to intervene to claim the compensation to which she would be entitled as a family member of the victim.

Testimonies and expert evidence

This week, more than a dozen witnesses were summoned to appear at the trial, including the homeless man who found the suitcase in the dumpster and a neighborhood worker he asked for help. Also scheduled to testify were the caretaker of the building where the victim and the accused lived, another tenant to whom the accused sublet a room days after the crime, and various people close to the victim.

Throughout the proceedings, eight Mossos d'Esquadra officers who intervened in the investigation of the case were also scheduled to testify, along with other officers who would explain the results of the forensic tests related to the container where the victim's remains were found, and forensic experts who were to present the results of the ruling. Other evidence that different experts were summoned to present in court relates to the analysis of the fingerprints and the images from security cameras on the street that captured the accused. Furthermore, had the case gone to trial, the jury would have heard from various mental health specialists who evaluated the defendant to clarify the impact his actions had on his conscience, a determining factor in determining whether or not to determine mitigation.