(Updated with more details)
Miami, February 28 The Spaniard-American Pablo Ibar, imprisoned in the United States since 1994 for three murders for which he pleaded not guilty and for which he was sentenced to death, asked this Tuesday before an appeal court the revocation of the life sentence imposed on him. .in 2019 and the holding of a new trial.
The first hearing of the appeal presented by Ibar’s lawyer, Joe Nascimento, was held by videoconference without the presence of the 50-year-old Hispanic American, who has spent more than half of his life in prison for the shooting death of Casimir. Sucharsky, owner of a nightclub, and models Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers, engaged on June 26, 1994 at the former’s home in Miramar/Florida).
Before the three judges of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth District of Florida, based in the city of West Palm Beach (120 km from Miami), Nascimento pointed out that the judicial process in which Ibar got rid of the sentence of died but was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.
The attorney, who was the one who led the defense in this jury trial, pointed out that no specific motive had been found that linked Ibar to the three homicides and that throughout the legal process there had been a negligence with exhibits used as evidence.
THE T-SHIRT WITH TRACES OF DNA, AN ESSENTIAL PIECE
To a question from Judge Melanie May on the most compelling argument to revoke the sentence, the lawyer referred to the small DNA sample belonging to his client which is on a blue T-shirt found in the house of Sucharsky after the triple murder.
Nascimento mentioned an expert who pointed out that the “quality of the sample was below standard” and pointed out that a video recorded by a security camera shows one of the murderers rubbing his face and cleaning his mouth. with his shirt, in which left their genetic traces.
These DNA samples “do not match Ibar’s”, he claimed.
Before May and Judges Cory Ciklin and Jeffrey Kuntz, defense counsel discussed some of the twelve grounds on which he sought to have the sentence quashed and requested that witness Gary Foy’s statement to the police in 1994, which was used by the Prosecutor’s Office to build the case against Ibar.
Nascimento said there were inconsistencies in Foy’s statements, but Assistant District Attorney Deborah Koening countered that the witness “had a good opportunity to see people” fleeing the crime scene on the day of the crime.
The jury in the 2019 trial, which was presided over by Judge Dennis Bailey, “was able to see for themselves that the appellant committed these crimes, and this is confirmed by testimony and a DNA sample,” said the prosecutor, who at the same time defended the manipulation of DNA samples.
A NEW OPPORTUNITY FOR TRUTH FORECASTING
The appeal was filed in court last August, after judges ordered Nascimento to nearly halve the text he had prepared for his request to have his life sentence overturned and hold a new trial. , which would be the fourth for Ibar.
The Spaniard, nephew of the late Spanish boxer José Manuel Ibar “Urtaín”, was sentenced to death in 2000, but the Florida Supreme Court overturned that sentence in 2016 considering the evidence against him “very weak” and He has ordered a retrial.
Ibar’s defense alleges in that appeal that the “numerous irregularities and biased decisions incurred by Judge Dennis Bailey” during the 2019 trial violated his “constitutional rights.”
Pablo Ibar, now 50 years old, was recently transferred from the Okeechobee penitentiary center (central Florida) to a private prison, where, according to the association Pablo Ibar -Just Trial, based in Vitoria (Spain) , he is in better conditions and he develops various activities, at the same time as he begins training as a welder.
Tanya Quiñones, Ibar’s wife and mother of his two children, told EFE on Monday that her husband has not given up hope that “the truth will prevail” after almost 30 years and that he can resume a normal life with him. his family. ECE
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