“They are going to spend Christmas at home and we are dead in life”

The other minor involved in the events, a 17-year-old girl who went out onto the street last week after serving the maximum period of pre-trial detention – nine months – will serve a five-year sentence for “necessary collaborator” in the crime. This was precisely one of the keys to the last day of the trial, in which the lawyer for Belén’s family joined the prosecution in considering the minor as an “accomplice”. The three were also sentenced to three years of supervised release.

The parents of the minors, as well as the Government of Extremadura, were ordered to compensate the parents and the partner of the victim for an amount which exceeds, in total, €620,000. The sentence, which was notified this Wednesday after the trial closed more than a month ago, on October 31, is not final and an appeal can be filed against it before the Provincial Court.

Nine months have passed since they said goodbye to Belén, in their native Castuera, their relatives do not appreciate the sentence, even if “it was clear what was going to happen”, as their partner recognizes: “The sanctions are those expected, it was not a surprise, they are ridiculous sanctions”. He believes in fact that everything is “a consequence of the shameful minor law”. He says, not without difficulty, that these are difficult times for him and for all those close to Belén, especially after reading the sentence: “The content is very, very, harsh and inhumane due to the extremely raw facts of which it is spoken.”

This young man tells ABC how he learned there was already a sentence on the table: “It was hard. I learned about it early in the morning, from a friend from Belén, outside the legal world. The maximum period of provisional measures has been respected, the proof is that the young girl is free and that in a few weeks she will be 18 years old.”

A mother without relief

Belén’s mother says she doesn’t know how to “explain something that has no explanation.” He admits that he knows “what is there” and that “no matter how many convictions there are,” “no one will give me my daughter back”: “With all the pain we have, we had to put up with the incompetence of the justice system and that the minors were the executive hands, but the administration is just as responsible. He emphasizes that “there were many complaints and incidents” and that no action was taken: “That night the whole system failed and, since then, everything has been failures that have left us living dead.”

This woman, who is trying to continue her life in Castuera, deplores that “the bureaucracy” “pushes them further and prolongs the agony”: “I could say even more atrocities, we do not believe in the system, nor in justice nor, of course, in politicians, all together, they are not worth what my daughter is worth.

In the same spirit, with as much or more force, the brother of the social educator speaks. “They are going to spend Christmas at home and we are going to spend Christmas fighting against bureaucracy,” he laments. He believes that neither the administration nor the company have kept “their promises”: “My brother was nothing but a number and a puzzle for them.” Concerning the sentence, he also insists on the fact that he does not believe “in reintegration or second chances”: “There are rotten people who deserve nothing and there is a system which only puts patches, everyone is guilty of the murder of my sister.”

Looking towards the horizon, the couple from Bethlehem ask that “real and effective measures be taken”, especially in the face of an “outdated and therefore sterile and useless law”. He believes it is time, once and for all, that “officials with power and competence confront the very serious problem that exists with crimes committed by minors.” For its part, the Ministry of Health and Social Services of the Government of Extremadura highlighted that during these nine months, the security of juvenile centers and supervised apartments has improved. The regional executive emphasizes that all juvenile centers in the region have 24-hour surveillance.

Focus on social educators

The extreme violence of the events that occurred on the night of March 9 to 10, 2025 caused a deep state of shock throughout Extremadura and the rest of Spain, opening a broad social debate on the delicate situation of precariousness in which social educators lived. That night, Belén was alone looking after three minors with numerous criminal records, after two of them, eventually convicted of murder, had escaped from the protected apartment a few days before, found with the mother of one of them and using drugs. It was Belén who picked them up, precisely, and brought them back. His colleagues already recounted in their time how they had experienced serious situations with minors. The family of one of them even asked that the two young people, aged 14 and 15, be separated. Despite everything, both continued to share spaces and Belén continued to lead.