 THE self-confessed killer of Sevilla teenager Marta del Castillo Casanueva has had his sentenced increased by just one year and three months following a re-opening of the case called for by the victim's family.
Miguel Carcaño, who was 20 at the time of the murder in January 2009, was imprisoned for 20 years and all other suspects involved in the case released.
His jail term has now been amended to 21 years and three months, with the extra period being for an 'attack on moral integrity' and the suffering caused by Marta's parents at not knowing where her body is.
Carcaño will also have to pay the costs, around 616,000 euros, borne by authorities for searching for the missing youngster, whose whereabouts remain unknown, since the killer continually changed his story about what he had done with her.
One of his friends who was initially acquitted of covering up the murder, Samuel Benítez, is due to face sentence at Sevilla Provincial Court.
Another friend, known by his nickname of 'El Cuco' – who was 15 at the time of Marta's death – spent two years in custody during the initial trial and is now free, but has an injunction preventing him from going within 50 kilometres of Sevilla.
Carcaño's older stepbrother, Francisco Javier Delgado and this man's girlfriend María García, have been acquitted.
The family's appeal for the original sentence to be declared null and void and a retrial carried out has been rejected by the judge on the grounds that no breach of procedures or of the Constitution that could justify a repetition of the process was involved in the first trial.
Carcaño's first version of the incident was that he and Marta, then 17, who was his ex-girlfriend at the time, had had an argument after she arranged to meet him about rumours she had heard he had been spreading about her, and that he had thrown an ashtray at her in temper, knocking her unconscious.
Fearing her dead, he panicked and dumped her body in the nearby river Guadalquivir.
But dredging the river produced no sign of the body, and it later transpired Marta was gang-raped and strangled.
Carcaño and the other accused parties then claimed Marta was on a landfill site near Sevilla – but again, no trace of her was found.
After confessing to the killing, he was originally facing 52 years in jail – two of which were for failing to reveal the whereabouts of Marta's body – but the fact no remains had been found meant evidence was limited and led to his final sentence being reduced to just 20 years. |
