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Diana Quer’s rapist and killer faces life imprisonment
07/03/2019
THE killer of Madrid sixth-former and model Diana Quer is facing jail for the rest of his life, or a minimum of 32 years if he is not considered rehabilitated.
José Enrique Abuín Gey, now 44, could be sentenced to 20 years for murder and false imprisonment and 12 for sexual assault, plus a further five to 10 years of being electronically tagged, according to recommendations received from the prosecution.
His sentenced will be based upon the figure of ‘permanent reviewable prison’, which the socialists and Podemos wanted to abolish but which Diana’s family has been fighting to keep in place.
This means that even once Abuín Gey’s custodial term is over, he will not be released if he is likely to reoffend.
The tragic tale of 18-year-old Diana’s last few hours have finally been revealed after more than a year of grilling the lone suspect, who has been in custody since Boxing Day 2017, just hours after attempting an identical kidnap of an Ecuadorian woman aged 32 who, thankfully, was saved from a similar fate by passers-by who fought off her attacker.
Diana, who lived in Pozuelo de Alarcón with her sister Valeria and her mother Diana López-Pinel and a short distance from her property tycoon father Juan Carlos – after her parents divorced when she was 14 - spent every summer in the family holiday home in A Pobra do Caramiñal (A Coruña province, Galicia), a town which was like a second home to her and where she had a complete set of friends.
Summer 2016, now 18 and halfway through sixth form at the high school in Boadilla del Monte, Madrid, saw her taking driving practical and theory lessons at an academy in A Pobra with friends the same age, having just embarked on a modelling career which she combined with her studies, and winning her courageous battle against anorexia and depression.
The young woman’s bright future was cruelly truncated when, in the early hours of August 22, she decided to walk the two kilometres back to her holiday home from an open-air disco, part of the local fiestas in A Pobra.
Walking home alone in the dark is not something women in Spain often worry about, since it is statistically very safe, and random cases of rape and murder by strangers are extremely rare.
But Diana’s last WhatsApp message at 02.20 to a friend in Pozuelo saying she thought she was being followed roused suspicions after she vanished on her journey home.
Confessions eventually drawn out of Abuín Gey revealed he had followed her at a distance in his car, waiting until she was in a remote enough area that they would not be discovered and seeing that she was sufficiently distracted sending messages on her phone.
He then approached her from behind, pinning her down with considerable force and snatching her iPhone from her so she could not call for help.
The accused forced her into the boot of his car, binding her hands and feet with plastic parcel straps and gagging her with duct tape, before driving off in the direction of Rianxo, some 15 kilometres away, where he lived.
Before reaching the abandoned industrial estate in Rianxo, Abuín Gey threw Diana’s mobile phone in the river Arousa, where it was found months later by a fisherman.
Once at the warehouse, Abuín Gey threw Diana down on one of the mattresses dumped there, stripped off her clothes and groped and then raped her, fighting off her fierce resistance.
To stop her resisting and to cover up the crime – knowing she would not stay silent – he fastened a plastic parcel strap around her neck, suffocating her.
Such was the force with which he strangled her that her neck broke, according to the forensic report.
He threw her naked body and her handbag down a deep well inside the warehouse and dumped her clothes several kilometres away in the countryside.
Fearing discovery if her body floated to the surface, Abuín Gey returned three weeks later, tied concrete blocks to her hands and feet, and covered the well with the lid of a manhole.
An international search ensued for the next 15 months, during which Diana’s family and friends, most of Spain and even police suspected she may be alive and either have run away from home or have been kidnapped, trafficked or held against her will.
Her mobile phone SIM card was duplicated and sent to Germany to see if any of her messages might give away where she was, and her handset was examined for the same reasons once it was found in the river.
Abuín Gey’s attempted abduction of a young woman on Christmas Day 2017 in identical circumstances led to his arrest as a suspect in Diana’s disappearance, and he finally confessed and led police to her body, which was found on New Year’s Eve.
But he initially denied rape or sexual assault, and tried to claim he had accidentally run her over when passing her walking home, panicked and dumped her body.
And after 15 months in a well, forensic examinations were unable to conclude whether or not she had been raped.
Now that the full facts have come to light and it turns out she had indeed been sexually assaulted, Abuín Gey’s case automatically qualifies for life imprisonment, since rape and murder combined are among the scenarios for which a criminal may be kept in jail indefinitely unless he or she is considered rehabilitated.
The trial is due to start in the next few weeks.
Abuín Gey has been ordered to pay compensation to Diana’s parents in the sum of €254,000 and to her sister Valeria, now 19, to the tune of €36,000.
But as he was a casual labourer whose alibi was that he was stealing petrol from lorries on the night of the murder, it seems unlikely he will be able to pay.
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THE killer of Madrid sixth-former and model Diana Quer is facing jail for the rest of his life, or a minimum of 32 years if he is not considered rehabilitated.
José Enrique Abuín Gey, now 44, could be sentenced to 20 years for murder and false imprisonment and 12 for sexual assault, plus a further five to 10 years of being electronically tagged, according to recommendations received from the prosecution.
His sentenced will be based upon the figure of ‘permanent reviewable prison’, which the socialists and Podemos wanted to abolish but which Diana’s family has been fighting to keep in place.
This means that even once Abuín Gey’s custodial term is over, he will not be released if he is likely to reoffend.
The tragic tale of 18-year-old Diana’s last few hours have finally been revealed after more than a year of grilling the lone suspect, who has been in custody since Boxing Day 2017, just hours after attempting an identical kidnap of an Ecuadorian woman aged 32 who, thankfully, was saved from a similar fate by passers-by who fought off her attacker.
Diana, who lived in Pozuelo de Alarcón with her sister Valeria and her mother Diana López-Pinel and a short distance from her property tycoon father Juan Carlos – after her parents divorced when she was 14 - spent every summer in the family holiday home in A Pobra do Caramiñal (A Coruña province, Galicia), a town which was like a second home to her and where she had a complete set of friends.
Summer 2016, now 18 and halfway through sixth form at the high school in Boadilla del Monte, Madrid, saw her taking driving practical and theory lessons at an academy in A Pobra with friends the same age, having just embarked on a modelling career which she combined with her studies, and winning her courageous battle against anorexia and depression.
The young woman’s bright future was cruelly truncated when, in the early hours of August 22, she decided to walk the two kilometres back to her holiday home from an open-air disco, part of the local fiestas in A Pobra.
Walking home alone in the dark is not something women in Spain often worry about, since it is statistically very safe, and random cases of rape and murder by strangers are extremely rare.
But Diana’s last WhatsApp message at 02.20 to a friend in Pozuelo saying she thought she was being followed roused suspicions after she vanished on her journey home.
Confessions eventually drawn out of Abuín Gey revealed he had followed her at a distance in his car, waiting until she was in a remote enough area that they would not be discovered and seeing that she was sufficiently distracted sending messages on her phone.
He then approached her from behind, pinning her down with considerable force and snatching her iPhone from her so she could not call for help.
The accused forced her into the boot of his car, binding her hands and feet with plastic parcel straps and gagging her with duct tape, before driving off in the direction of Rianxo, some 15 kilometres away, where he lived.
Before reaching the abandoned industrial estate in Rianxo, Abuín Gey threw Diana’s mobile phone in the river Arousa, where it was found months later by a fisherman.
Once at the warehouse, Abuín Gey threw Diana down on one of the mattresses dumped there, stripped off her clothes and groped and then raped her, fighting off her fierce resistance.
To stop her resisting and to cover up the crime – knowing she would not stay silent – he fastened a plastic parcel strap around her neck, suffocating her.
Such was the force with which he strangled her that her neck broke, according to the forensic report.
He threw her naked body and her handbag down a deep well inside the warehouse and dumped her clothes several kilometres away in the countryside.
Fearing discovery if her body floated to the surface, Abuín Gey returned three weeks later, tied concrete blocks to her hands and feet, and covered the well with the lid of a manhole.
An international search ensued for the next 15 months, during which Diana’s family and friends, most of Spain and even police suspected she may be alive and either have run away from home or have been kidnapped, trafficked or held against her will.
Her mobile phone SIM card was duplicated and sent to Germany to see if any of her messages might give away where she was, and her handset was examined for the same reasons once it was found in the river.
Abuín Gey’s attempted abduction of a young woman on Christmas Day 2017 in identical circumstances led to his arrest as a suspect in Diana’s disappearance, and he finally confessed and led police to her body, which was found on New Year’s Eve.
But he initially denied rape or sexual assault, and tried to claim he had accidentally run her over when passing her walking home, panicked and dumped her body.
And after 15 months in a well, forensic examinations were unable to conclude whether or not she had been raped.
Now that the full facts have come to light and it turns out she had indeed been sexually assaulted, Abuín Gey’s case automatically qualifies for life imprisonment, since rape and murder combined are among the scenarios for which a criminal may be kept in jail indefinitely unless he or she is considered rehabilitated.
The trial is due to start in the next few weeks.
Abuín Gey has been ordered to pay compensation to Diana’s parents in the sum of €254,000 and to her sister Valeria, now 19, to the tune of €36,000.
But as he was a casual labourer whose alibi was that he was stealing petrol from lorries on the night of the murder, it seems unlikely he will be able to pay.
Related Topics
You may also be interested in ...
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