The public prosecutor's office has requested that a trial be opened before the Provincial Court against an inmate accused of a crime against public health, after he was apprehended on March 15, 2024, inside the prison located in southern Gran Canaria. The events occurred at approximately 12:50 p.m., immediately after the defendant had a private encounter with his partner at the Las Palmas II Penitentiary Center, located in the judicial district of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, where he was serving a sentence for previous offenses.
During a subsequent search conducted by prison officials, officers discovered two bags containing narcotics concealed on the inmate's body, presumably intended for distribution within the prison. The drugs seized included 1,85 grams of cocaine with a purity of 83,89%, 22,9 grams of heroin with a purity of 4,6% (equivalent to approximately 229 individual doses), and 36,7 grams of hashish. The total street value of the seized substances amounts to €1.676,24, according to the expert valuation included in the court records.
The prosecution maintains that the inmate possessed the narcotics with the clear intention of obtaining illicit financial gain by selling the drugs to the prison population, thereby endangering the individual and collective health of others. These actions have been provisionally classified as constituting a crime against public health, specifically the possession of substances that cause serious harm to health, as defined in Article 368 of the Penal Code, in conjunction with Article 374 of the same legal text, with the defendant being charged as the perpetrator.
The indictment details that the defendant has a criminal record stemming from a previous sentence handed down by Criminal Court No. 6 of Las Palmas in case 233/2019, which became final in January 2020, for aggravated burglary for which he was sentenced to three years and one day in prison. Since no mitigating or aggravating circumstances were found in the case at hand, the prosecution is requesting a primary sentence of four years and six months' imprisonment.
In addition to the prison sentence, the prosecution is requesting the temporary suspension of the defendant's political rights through special disqualification from holding public office for the duration of the sentence. Furthermore, it is demanding payment of a fine of €5.028, with a subsidiary criminal liability of thirty days' imprisonment in case of non-payment, and the imposition of court costs. The final court ruling will include the confiscation of the seized drugs for their subsequent destruction and the preservation of official samples.
