Ali Khouch, the murderer of his pregnant wife and seven-year-old son in Sa Pobla (Mallorca) in May 2021, has been sentenced to permanent revisable prison. It is the first time in the history of the Balearic Islands that this penalty, included in the Spanish Penal Code in March 2015 and the most severe, is applied. The magistrate-president of the Jury Court has imposed him 25 years in prison for the murder of his relatives, in addition to 6 months in prison for habitual mistreatment.
According to the resolution, “the accused attacked his son under 7 years of age, taking advantage not only of the fact that the minor was not going to expect an attack from the person who should watch over him and protect him, but also of the disproportion of forces existing between a minor of 7 years of age and a young adult, and consummated his purpose with extreme ease, he grabbed him by the neck and strangled him, not without first having immobilized the minor using his feet, since fibers from the minor’s shirt were found in the flip-flops worn by the accused, a conduct that is self-defined and deserves a strong criminal reproach”. On the other hand, according to the sentence, the defendant must compensate each of his wife’s parents in the amount of 238,593 euros; and her three siblings in the total amount of 322,755 euros. Therefore, he will have to pay the victims’ families around 800,000 euros. “It is considered that the amounts of compensation requested by the private prosecution are proportionate and justified in view of the incalculable moral damage resulting from the facts declared proven,” the judge said.
Murders with malice aforethought
It should be recalled that last Friday the Jury Court of the Provincial Court of the Balearic Islands issued a guilty verdict against the convicted. The Jury considered proven the two murders with malice aforethought and overkill, with the aggravating circumstance of kinship and gender discrimination -one of them-; and a crime of abortion. The members of the Jury also considered him guilty of mistreating his wife and son. The Court found him guilty of the analogical mitigating circumstance of collaboration with Justice, given that he called the Civil Guard confessing the facts. This resolution is the first imposed in the Balearic Islands with a permanent revisable prison sentence. The sentence is not final, an appeal can be made to the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands (TSJIB).
