64 year old woman accused of killing her husband in a fight, María Pilar Marcos, has been found not guilty

A 64 year old woman accused of killing her husband in a fight, María Pilar Marcos, has been found not guilty by a jury in Navarra. The court heard how she had been ill-treated by her husband for some 38 years of their 44 year long marriage, and how she used a knife to kill him during a fight at their home in Tafalla, Navarra in November 2009.

The nine members of the jury considered that it had not been proven by the prosecution that a crime had taken place. They had asked the judge for guidance on four possible charges, murder, murder with casual malice, reckless homicide and accidental injury, but they considered none of the four had been proven in court, and that there was not enough evidence to suggest that the woman had the intention of killing her husband in the struggle, saying that she could have grabbed any other non-mortal object to hand to defend herself. And so the woman was declared by the judge free to go.

The prosecutor had called for an 11 year sentence for murder.
The judge had on Tuesday returned an earlier verdict back to the jury considering it held contradictions, and on Wednesday morning they sat again to reconsider.

On hearing the verdict the accused family hugged each other and gave shouts of joy. The accused told the press that she could not believe what had happened, just as she could not believe the nightmare that had happened to her before. She noted that through it all her friends, five children and grandchildren had been unconditionally at her side, and she also had words of thanks for the police who she had treated her marvellously, as had the prison officers.

The prosecutor has the option of an appeal to the Navarra High Court against the verdict and should that not be successful then to turn to the Supreme Court should it be decided to do so.



Meanwhile in another domestic violence case the man who is accused of killing his 26 year old wife and two children aged 6 and 2 in Tarragona on October 18, has now been arrested by the Guardia Urbana in Barcelona.

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