Diana Quer Murder Trial Postponed After Failure To Secure Jury

THE TRIAL of the man accused of killing 18-year-old Diana Quer has been postponed until the 11th November after it was not possible to form the jury.

The hearing at the Superior Court of Justice of Galicia was delayed after a number of selected jurors made legal reasons for not being a member of the jury.

José Enrique Abuín, nicknamed ‘El Chicle’, is facing a full life term sentence for the killing and concealment of the teenager in 2016.

The problems became evident an hour in to the court case when it became clear that there were not sufficient candidates to form a jury, as stipulated by the law. According to the High Court of Justice of Galicia (TSXG), to proceed with the selection of the 9 people (plus two substitutes) the presence of at least 20 candidates is obligatory.

On this occasion, of the 36 people initially selected from a draw, 15 had presented accepted excuses for not participating in the process. Resulting in only 21 candidates available for in this first session held at the Courts of Fontiñas.

However, in the courtroom, four of these candidates refused to participate in the procedure. Two for medical reasons, one for reasons of non-objectivity and the fourth, a woman who refused her participation on the grounds that she was older than 65 years.

The initial 21 candidates were thus reduced to 17 so that one hour into the trial, at around 11:00 a.m., the Court had to suspend the proceedings, with November 11 as the new date given.

In this period of time, the Provincial Court will hold a new draw in which 8 additional candidates will be chosen to complement the current 17 candidates.

“El Chicle” was going to appear in Santiago de Compostela today (Tuesday) to give a statement before the popular jury, in the same courtroom as the one in which he appeared last April for the attempted kidnapping of a young girl from Boiro (A Coruña) in December 2017. These events precipitated his arrest as a suspect in the crime of Diana Quer.

Diana Quer, the 18-year-old girl from Madrid, did not return to her summer home on 22 August 2016. Her body was found in a well on the 31 December 2017, 500 days after her disappearance.

Diana Quer’s family lawyer, Ricardo Pérez Lama, stated on Monday that the postponement of the trial is “an inconvenience for everyone” especially for the victim’s parents “because they have been suffering for years.”

The teen’s family was subjected to intense public scrutiny by the media, which had a field day with stories of family fights and reports by people claiming to have seen the youth anywhere from Spain to Romania.

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Cristina Hodgson

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