It is not that there are two versions, that of the aggressor and that of the victim, it is that there are four. The alleged victim of the aggression perpetrated by the socialist councilor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife José Ángel Martín has revealed what his son and two other witnesses allegedly were present at the scene of the events last Wednesday afternoon in a field soccer team at El Tablero, in the capital of Tenerife. The victim’s son and a couple who were there nailed their statements thread by thread before the National Police, very detrimental to the socialist councillor, but the sore Manuel HD, from the University Hospital of the Canary Islands (HUC), took off in such version.
The most spontaneous statement, of course, one might think was the one the victim gave to the doctors who received him at the HUC Emergency Department, where he was taken by ambulance. According to the medical report in the hands of the judge, he told the doctors that his injury occurred when he was attacked at the entrance to the San José de El Tablero soccer field, an attack “during which they push him and he falls to the ground, causing said injuries serious”, that is, a sprain and fracture of the tibia and fibula of the right foot. Nothing is said in this first version embodied in the medical report of the person most affected by the incidents that his serious injuries were caused by a violent kick that the councilor José Ángel Martín gave to a metal door that, in turn, hit strongly the foot of Manuel HD, who was behind. Which is the version held by his son and two other people.
Already treated in the ER and stabilized, the victim receives the National Police at the same hospital, who takes his statement. In it, Manuel HD slightly transforms his version to manage to mention a door, but he does not reach the drama of other friendly witnesses. Specifically, he limits himself to talking about José Ángel Martín “hitting the door” and pushing him “with both hands on his chest”, which then caused him to fall to the ground, where he realized that his leg was deformed and it hurt. enough, according to the statement in the possession of the judge.
As can be seen, the affected person adds to the “push” element, which he told the doctors who treated him, the “door” element, necessary to at least get closer to the version that the other witnesses had already provided, including his son. But it does not reach the hard version that it was the kick to the door that, surely in conjunction with some other determining factor, crushed Manuel’s foot.
His wife, who became his spokesperson from the hospital in the first hours of the conflict, repeated on various radio stations that her husband suffered a sprain with a broken tibia and fibula. The sprain is more forensically consistent with a sprain than a blow, and less of a blow of the kind that like-minded witnesses described to the police.
But it is that in the first version that all the witnesses offered at the scene of the events to the agents of the Local Police of Santa Cruz de Tenerife who appeared almost immediately, they only referred to a push from José Ángel Martín to the people who were attacking in a tangana that was set up in those City Hall facilities to which several socialists went to verify that it was true that they were closed for neighborhood use. The victim’s son, Levi HG, told the municipal police officers that the councilor pushed his father, “falling backwards to the ground,” according to the police report incorporated into the case and held by this newspaper. Levi, who had injuries to the knuckles of one hand, denied to the agents that he had assaulted José Ángel Martín, who had a wound on his lip.
Both Mónica del Cristo CS, as well as her husband or partner Tomás DC, fully agreed in their statements before the National Police describing the bad manners that, in their opinion, the socialist councilor showed when demanding that they open the bathrooms because his son “was peeing”. , as stated in the proceedings. The mismatch of versions begins when these two witnesses refer at the beginning of their statements that at 5:45 p.m. on Wednesday there are “four people, two men and two women” on the soccer field, among whom they do not refer to any children. or girl, which could hardly support someone asking for a bathroom key for a child. But, in addition, José Ángel Martín does not have children, which complicates the version even more.
Neither Manuel HD’s son nor the other two witnesses who recounted the attack on the former say they had heard the previous insults against José Ángel Martín, much less the attacks he was subjected to before the alleged victim rolled on the ground. And that, in both cases, in statements that the National Police traced, they claim to have been less than two meters from the facts.
Indeed, Mónica and Tomás (and to a lesser extent Levi) refer to almost exactly the same thing in their statements, although Mónica goes a little further by recognizing “Patricia” from the PSOE among the four people, which no other witness does. “Patricia” is Patricia Hernández, current councilor and PSOE mayoral candidate, a big game for her political opponents, who have seen in this incident a unique opportunity to wear her down. But the PSOE decided almost on the fly to oust Ángel Luis Martín by making him present his resignation from any position and resign in advance to take possession of the act of councilor when he gets it starting this Sunday. His most direct rival, the current mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, from Coalición Canaria, was quick to announce that the City Council will appear in the case as an accusation.
The latest version, that of José Ángel Martín’s companions, differs substantially from that of the people close to the victim. They speak of insults on the part of Manuel HD and his son Levi, of continuous provocations, and even of attacks by the latter on the councilman later arrested. Even two punches, says witness 4, Raúl MM, who was accompanying Martín at that moment, who shakes off the aggressors causing Manuel to fall. There is no door, there is no kick. José Ángel Martín also presents some injuries.
