The Prosecutor's Office asks to acquit the policemen who knocked down the door of a house with a battering ram in Madrid
The Prosecutor's Office believes that the national police officers accused of breaking into a flat on Lagasca street without court order in March 2021 they could commit a crime but that, in any case, they should not be sentenced. The Public Ministry has presented a brief in which it believes that everyone could have incurred a crime of breaking and entering but that none of them can be held criminally responsible: the five agents acted in the line of duty and their superior, the one who ordered to enter the apartment without a court order, acted “in the full conviction that these people were committing a flagrant crime of disobedience to authority” and that this allowed him to break down the door.
The judge lifts the accusation of five of the six agents who broke into a flat with a battering ram in the pandemic
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The events occurred in March 2021 in a house in Lagasca street in Madrid, where several people were celebrating a party. A party that, according to the notice received by the National Police, did not comply with the COVID restrictions imposed at that time by the health authorities.
The agents, according to the Prosecutor's Office, verified that the house had the "appearance" of being a tourist flat and demanded that the people leave the house. After 45 minutes, the superior of the operation ordered to enter the apartment and the five agents tried to open the door using the slide method and, finally, with a battering ram. Later they arrested several people.
The Prosecutor's Office understands that neither the superior nor the agents who broke down the door they can be convicted. The investigation also revealed that the house was not a tourist apartment: it had been rented by a company with a rental contract for its use as a home and had been his home for more than a month at that time.
With these reasons, he understands that the superior who ordered the door to be broken down cannot be convicted even if he can be charged with a crime of breaking and entering. He understands it this way because, based on the unverified suspicion that it was a tourist apartment, he ordered the door to be broken down, understanding that they were committing a crime of disobedience to authority. The same happens with the other agents: "They considered that it was a legal order emanating from a hierarchical superior," says the Prosecutor's Office.
