Trial Begins for Spanish Man Accused in Fatal Stabbing of Moroccan Farm Worker

The defendant, 23 years old at the time of the events, stabbed the 27-year-old Moroccan on the El Brujuelo farm in Jaén where they both worked for the olive harvest. The victim was the foreman of the farm and the accused was on his first day of work.

In the indictment to which Europa Press had access, the prosecution qualifies the facts as a crime of homicide, but requests that self-defense be taken into account, considering that the accused stabbed the victim "with the sole purpose of defending himself". The events took place on November 30, 2021 when, during the lunch break, a group of seasonal workers "were playing throwing olives" and some of them hit a compatriot of the victim who asked them to stop.

According to the prosecution, the accused punched this seasonal worker who threatened that "he was not going to stop there". He went to tell his aggression to the victim and a third person. The latter then went to the accused to ask him for explanations. According to the prosecutor, it is the victim who "first struck the accused" with a ham knife. Reacting to the attack, he ended up stabbing him with a small knife with which he was eating, causing his "almost immediate" death.

After the events, the accused was placed in pre-trial detention before being provisionally released in December 2021. His lawyer pleads self-defense, while the lawyer for the victim’s family demands that he be sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison and to pay 200,000 euros