From Madrid to Seville, Barcelona or Valencia, Ospina Abogados launches in August the Single Assistance system that guarantees attention to any client in Spain in less than 3 hours.
Summer triggers the commission of certain criminal acts that will require the assistance of a criminal lawyer to best attend to the rights of those involved.
The great difficulty in summer is to find a criminal law firm that can urgently attend a police arrest, a legal assistance to a detainee at the police station, or of course, the so-called fast track trials.
DETAINEE IN SUMMER. HOW CAN WE FIND A GOOD CRIMINAL LAWYER?
We do not usually have a criminal lawyer on our phonebook, as most of us are not conflict-prone citizens. However, we may need to call a criminal lawyer out of strict necessity.
Ospina Abogados has a 24-hour telephone helpline on its website ospina.es. Through this initial telephone or telematic assistance service via Zoom or Skype, we will assess whether it is necessary to travel to cover the services.
This initiative, linked to the ease of contacting members of the firm through social networks, is the result of the involvement of the three partners of the criminal law firm: Juan Gonzalo Ospina, Antonio García Jabaloy and Beatriz Uriarte, with a clear commitment to excellence in procedural representation, seeking to remain positioned among the best criminal law firms in Spain.
Cette initiative, liée à la facilité de contacter les membres du cabinet par le biais des réseaux sociaux, est le résultat de l’implication des trois associés du cabinet d’avocats pénalistes : Juan Gonzalo Ospina, Antonio García Jabaloy et Beatriz Uriarte, avec un engagement clair en faveur de l’excellence dans la représentation procédurale, cherchant à rester positionné parmi les meilleurs cabinets d’avocats pénalistes en Espagne.
WHICH ARE THE MOST COMMON CRIMES COMMITED IN SUMMER?
Online and holiday scams
Juango Ospina has been warning for years on his social networks about the ease with which scammers clone websites or copy advertisements to trick users. “Beware of messages with suspicious links. Don’t click on links included in emails, SMS or received via any messaging service that don’t inspire confidence” he says, while giving us some tips to avoid being scammed with our holiday bookings.
Don’t trust offers that are too good to be true, that combine excessively low prices with very attractive images or accommodation. Also if an owner wants to make too many changes during the booking process (offers you to pay differently, sends you contact addresses that do not match the advert, offers you a different advert that was not on the page, etc.) there could be a criminal behind it.
Communication and payment, always on the platform. If you are asked to make a deposit or bank transfer, if you are given a PDF or paper invoice or offered a discount for paying outside the platform, be suspicious.
Be suspicious of an urgent tone or inconsistencies on the part of the host. Scammers often try to rush or pressure guests to book, show inconsistencies in the language they use and in their nationalities, areas of residence or telephone prefixes, as well as in the text of the accommodation advert.
Crimes of gender violence
According to Beatriz Uriarte, criminal lawyer and expert in crimes of gender violence and sexual violence, she warns that “parties, changes in routine, more alcohol, living together without work and other reasons are behind the increase in reports of gender violence in the summer months”, figures that do not correspond directly with the volume of convictions, given that “all of the complaints are not true or cannot be proven before a judge”, which is why he urges you to put your case in the hands of an expert, whether you are the complainant or the accused, which “will most likely avoid future problems in such a delicate area as gender violence”.
European Arrest Warrants and Surrender Orders
The data provided by the Audiencia Nacional indicate that since 2021 there has been an increase of 45.7% over the previous year in those issued and 38.1% in those received if we refer to the European Arrest Warrants, an agile procedure within the member countries of the Union that requires specific knowledge from your lawyer if you want to have a chance of not being handed over to the country that demands you by this means.
Antonio García Jabaloy, a prosecutor on leave of absence, explains that European arrest warrants “are not a particularly complex procedure, but they are very specific and have specific legislation that is not normally widely known among lawyers, including criminal law lawyers”, which is why he insists that “this type of procedure is very formal, with pre-established guidelines and therefore the final refusal of surrender is limited”, requiring the services of the best criminal lawyers if we want to assert our rights with guarantees.
Extradition requests
Similar, although with a fundamental nuance such as the origin of the countries involved, we have the extradition requests through which a state can deliver or not a person to another state for prosecution, or for the fulfillment of a sentence, differing from the Euro warrants in that these are with non-EU countries.
“If we talk about extradition between countries outside the European Union we must refer to each of the conventions or treaties signed between Spain and the different states. This brings a high degree of complexity,” says Ospina, who in tandem with Jabaloy recently had an extradition requested by Costa Rica of a Costa Rican national residing in Spain rejected.
Road safety offences
Ospina Abogados has won some of the most difficult road safety cases. A client driving at 150 km/h on a stretch of road with a 60 km/h speed limit avoided jail. The acquittal of a man who was caught driving at 242 km/h, but who subsequently could not be identified, or the curious case of a breathalyser test for apparently insignificant details, such as that of a driver who, driving the wrong way down a busy street in Madrid and despite testing positive in the breathalyser test, was acquitted because it was not accredited that his driving was a consequence of his state of drunkenness, which did not prevent him from driving properly.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE POLICE ARREST A PERSON UNDER INVESTIGATION IN A SPEEDY TRIAL?
Once you are detained you can communicate with a family member, a third party in your circle and also if you have a private lawyer outside the province on the basis of article 520 LECrim.
In general, the 72-hour time limit is established, but there are two time limits, a relative one, the detention cannot last longer than the time strictly necessary to carry out the investigations to clarify the facts, and an absolute maximum time limit of 72 hours from the beginning of the detention, which does not necessarily have to coincide with the moment in which the person concerned is in police custody.
“The right to be brought before the judicial authority, or to be released, within a maximum period of 72 hours, does not allow for delays”, says Ospina, indicating the importance of putting your situation in the hands of a criminal lawyer as soon as possible.
The haste is indicated by several factors, the first one being the speedy trial, where the prosecutor will practice the necessary diligences to be able to make the indictment and will accuse. If the accused has been caught in flagrante delicto, a good option for the defense is to accept the proposed indictment, since the proposed penalty will be reduced by one third.
But if the penalty is not accepted, the guilt will have to be discussed before a criminal court. “Beware. Once the prosecutor’s accusation is accepted, it can no longer be discussed. The accused will be sentenced and with a criminal record”, indicates the lawyer consulted “that is why it is very important to hire a criminal lawyer who can appear urgently and work with his client from the first moment of his statement, as well as practice the interrogation of witnesses and can ask for investigation diligences because the sooner the better”. A piece of advice that we should take into consideration.
The second option is that the police determine that the police investigation requires more diligences and cannot be finished in 72 hours. Or that the investigated person has not been caught in flagrante delicto either.
If this is the case, the detainee will be brought before the judge who will take his statement at a hearing. If the investigated facts are very serious or the accused is a foreigner who does not have roots or social ties in Spain, he may be sent to provisional imprisonment.
It is important to remember that the provisional imprisonment may last 2 years in Spain and may be extended for another 2 years for a total of 4 years. However, after several months in pre-trial detention it is usual to be released on bail to reduce the risk of absconding. But all this can be avoided with a correct criminal defense that assists us from the first moment. Then it may be too late.
WHAT IS OSPINA ABOGADOS’ EXCLUSIVE ASSISTANCE?
The exclusive assistance is a service that is implemented to ensure that, in less than 3 hours, and once the interested party is a client of the firm, that is, has signed the professional engagement form and accepted the fees for the work of the firm, a lawyer will assist the interested party.
This has been achieved by locating partners of the firm in different parts of Spain, from San Sebastian, Malaga, or Alicante which allows the lawyers to move according to the client’s needs since criminal law applies equally throughout Spain.
*Ospina Abogados is currently one of the top rated criminal law firms by clients on the internet according to the verified ranking of Google reviews.
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