Jury finds ¡®El Chicle¡¯ guilty of murdering teenager Diana Quer
Jos¨¦ Enrique Abu¨ªn Gey could be sentenced to the equivalent under Spanish law of a life sentence for the abduction and murder of the Madrid native in 2016
After an 11-day trial and three-and-a-half days of deliberation, on Saturday the jury in the Diana Quer case found Jos¨¦ Enrique Abu¨ªn Gey, better known by the nickname ¡°El Chicle,¡± guilty of murder, sexual assault, and abduction.
Quer was an 18-year-old from Madrid who had been spending her summer vacation in the Galician town of A Pobra de Carami?al with her family when she went missing on the night of August 21, 2016, as she was walking home alone on a deserted street during the local fiestas.
Today my daughter is smiling from heaven knowing that justice has been done
Victim¡¯s father Juan Carlos Quer
Abu¨ªn had been a main suspect in the Diana Quer investigation, but the case had been shelved in April last year for lack of conclusive evidence.
The case was reopened after Abu¨ªn was arrested in December 2017 for assaulting another young woman. The physical description provided by the victim led investigators to Abu¨ªn.
Following his arrest, Abu¨ªn led the police to Diana Quer¡¯s body, which was at the bottom of a water deposit inside an abandoned warehouse in Rianxo, a town in the northwestern region of Galicia. Despite initially confessing that he had strangled her after trying to rape her, Abu¨ªn later said that he had accidentally hit her with his car.
It is now up to Judge ?ngel Pant¨ªn of the A Coru?a provincial court to decide whether to sentence Abu¨ªn to permanent reviewable prison, the equivalent under Spanish law of a life sentence.
A majority of the nine-member jury agreed that Abu¨ªn¡¯s confession should be taken into account as a mitigating factor. Abu¨ªn is currently in prison serving two sentences for drug trafficking, and unlawful detention and attempted sexual assault against the victim from December 2017.
¡°Today my daughter is smiling from heaven knowing that justice has been done,¡± said the victim¡¯s father, Juan Carlos Quer, after the verdict was made public.
Quer¡¯s disappearance in 2016 triggered a massive search operation that yielded no results. 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.
English version by Melissa Kitson.
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