Francisco Javier Almeida was convicted of two killings. The first was the 1998 murder of María del Carmen López Guergué in Logroño, in La Rioja, northern Spain. The second was the murder of a nine-year-old boy named Álex in the neighboring town of Lardero on October 28, 2021, after Almeida had been released from prison on conditional release in April 2020. The first sentence was 30 years. The second was prisión permanente revisable, the maximum penalty in the Spanish Criminal Code, a term that is subject to review. The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal in March 2024.
The second killing turned a criminal case into a national argument about how prison systems decide when a man can return to society. In the days after Álex's death two parties asked the Interior Minister to explain a prison-grade decision that had gone against the view of the prison's own treatment board.
His first known conviction came in 1993, when Almeida was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to seven years in prison. Spanish press accounts after his arrest in 2021 said he was released in 1997 after serving about four years of it. One newspaper, Vozpopuli, placed the offense in 1989 and the sentence at seven years with four served; El Debate and The Objective give the conviction as 1993. The court that imposed the sentence is not on record.
Almeida was known to the few acquaintances he had in Lardero as "Pachi," Vozpopuli reported in 2022, and he worked there for a cleaning company that employs former prisoners. In 2021 the press gave his age as 54. Little else of his early life, family or upbringing is on record.
On August 17, 1998, about a year after leaving prison, Almeida killed María del Carmen López Guergué in Logroño. She was a young woman; her age is given as 26 in one report and 30 in others.
The court-appointed psychiatrist and forensic doctors who examined him before trial ruled out any psychiatric disorder that limited his responsibility, El Español reported in 2021. After two years in provisional detention, according to a judge who had sentenced him and who spoke to ESdiario in 2021, he waived his right to ask for release. He told the court he did not feel ready to return to society and asked for treatment for physical and mental problems.
On April 7, 2000, the Audiencia Provincial de La Rioja sentenced Almeida to 20 years for murder and to 10 years, the maximum, for sexual assault. It applied the aggravating circumstance of recidivism because of the 1993 conviction. The Tribunal Superior de Justicia de La Rioja upheld the sentence in July 2000, and the Supreme Court did so in 2001, The Objective reported in 2023.
The two terms add up to the 30 years that nearly every account uses. Some reports in 2021 cited a cumulative sentence of 25 years.
Almeida served the sentence mainly at El Dueso prison in Santoña, Cantabria. From 2013, when he had served about fifteen years, a surveillance judge authorized prison leaves for him. El Debate and Ondavasca counted 39 of them, described as without incident; El Independiente and Vozpopuli counted 38.
By 2017 he had served three-quarters of the 30 years. The treatment board at El Dueso did not recommend moving him to the third grade, the semi-open regime, and the prison authority delayed the change for about three years, citing the principle of caution. In 2019 the board's majority advised that he stay in the second grade. He appealed the decision to the central prison administration.
On February 6, 2020, according to El Español, the Secretaría General de Instituciones Penitenciarias, which sits under the Interior Ministry, granted him third grade over the board's position. The reasons given were the absence of incidents during his leaves, the three-quarters of the sentence served and his good conduct. He was transferred to the Logroño prison. On April 8, 2020, the surveillance judge granted conditional release. The public prosecutor's office did not oppose it. The sentence would have ended in 2023, the press said. After his release he settled in Lardero.
On Thursday, October 28, 2021, Álex, a nine-year-old boy, was killed in Lardero, La Rioja, a town a few kilometers from Logroño.
Almeida was arrested in Lardero in the early hours of October 29, according to The Olive Press, which gave his age as 54. The Guardia Civil's judicial police unit in La Rioja took over the investigation.
On Sunday, October 31, Almeida was brought before the Juzgado de Instrucción nº 2 de Logroño. The judge had declared the case secret and lifted the secrecy after the hearing, Ondavasca reported. Almeida chose not to make a statement, and the judge ordered him held in provisional prison without bail. In Logroño prison he received threats from other inmates, and on November 3 he was transferred to a prison in Segovia on security grounds. By April 2023 he was held at Herrera de la Mancha prison in Manzanares, in the province of Ciudad Real, where he asked to stay.
The killing was within days a political matter. El Debate reported on November 2, 2021, that the Partido Popular and Ciudadanos asked Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and the head of the prison administration to explain the third-grade decision, which had gone against the El Dueso treatment board. The Vox leader Santiago Abascal accused the minister of protecting criminals rather than victims. Grande-Marlaska replied that every measure set by the judicial authority had been met and that the administration had acted within the principle of legality.
The family said publicly that Álex's death could have been prevented, Vozpopuli reported in April 2022, and that it would work to make sure Almeida never returned to the street. Its lawyer, Alicia Redondo, acted for the private prosecution together with the Asociación Clara Campoamor, which joined as a popular accusation.
In January 2023 the Audiencia Provincial de La Rioja, reviewing sentences on its own initiative after a new sexual-freedom law (Organic Law 10/2022) took effect, reduced the 10-year term for the 1998 sexual assault to eight years. The court applied the rule that a later criminal law more favorable to the defendant has retroactive effect. The order was the first of 55 reductions the court made in La Rioja. Under the reduction the old sentence would have ended on March 9, 2023. It changed nothing in practice, because Almeida was by then in provisional prison for the Lardero case.
The jury trial opened on March 20, 2023, at the Audiencia Provincial de La Rioja, before a jury of nine, and ran over seven sessions. The prosecutor sought prisión permanente revisable for murder and 15 years on the second count, and the family and the Asociación Clara Campoamor asked for the maximum penalty.
On March 30, 2023, shortly after 7:15 p.m., the jury read its verdict. It unanimously found Almeida guilty of the murder and of the further charge. It found that the boy had no way to defend himself. It also ruled that the sentence should not be suspended and should not allow a pardon. In his last words to the court Almeida said he was truly sorry, Diario de Avisos reported.
The presiding judge's sentence, of more than 200 pages, was announced on April 18, 2023. For the murder, which the court classed as murder with treachery (asesinato con alevosía) committed to conceal the other offense, Almeida received prisión permanente revisable. For the further count he received 15 years. The court applied the aggravating circumstance of recidivism, and found that the more lenient provisions of Organic Law 10/2022 were not more favorable to him. After serving his term he is barred for ten years from living in La Rioja and from contacting or approaching the boy's parents and brother. He was ordered to pay 300,000 euros to each parent and 60,000 euros to the brother, although he had been declared insolvent.
The Objective noted that it was the second time the Audiencia de La Rioja had imposed the penalty. The first was in 2022, in a case involving a child killed by her mother in Logroño.
A family spokesman, a relative of the boy, said the family was satisfied with the sentence but that the matter was not closed. He said that without the April 2020 release the case would not be in the news, and that he wanted the full sentence served. Redondo called the ruling "muy buena" and said it granted nearly all she had requested.
Almeida telephoned his court-appointed lawyer after learning of the sentence from the media and said he wanted to appeal, The Objective reported on April 19, 2023. The appeal was lodged with the civil and criminal chamber of the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de La Rioja on May 3, 2023. The tribunal upheld the verdict. Almeida then took the case to the Sala Penal of the Tribunal Supremo.
On March 14, 2024, elDiario.es reported that the Supreme Court had dismissed his appeal in full. He had argued that the finding of treachery and the finding of intent to kill were wrong, and he claimed the mitigating circumstance of reparation of harm. The court rejected that last claim, calling it difficult to accept and a sign of disregard for the family's pain.
Several details differ between published accounts. The year of the first conviction is 1993 in most press accounts and 1989 in one. The first sentence is given as 30 years in most reports and as 25 years in others. The number of prison leaves is 39 in some reports and 38 in others. The victim in 1998 is described as 26 in one article and 30 in others. A few articles dated the Lardero killing to 2020, in error; the verdict and the Supreme Court report both give October 28, 2021. The arrest is placed on the night of October 28 in some accounts and shortly after midnight on October 29 in The Olive Press.
No other killing has been attributed to him in press coverage of the case.
1993: Convicted of sexual assault; sentenced to seven years; released in 1997.
August 17, 1998: María del Carmen López Guergué is killed in Logroño.
April 7, 2000: Audiencia Provincial de La Rioja sentences Almeida to 20 years for murder and 10 for sexual assault; upheld by the regional court in July 2000 and the Supreme Court in 2001.
2013: Prison leaves begin.
February 6, 2020: Third grade granted.
April 8, 2020: Conditional release.
October 28, 2021: Álex, aged nine, is killed in Lardero.
Early on October 29, 2021: Almeida is arrested.
October 31, 2021: Appears before the investigating court in Logroño; held without bail.
January 2023: The 1998 assault term is reduced from 10 to 8 years.
March 20 to 30, 2023: Jury trial and unanimous verdict.
April 18, 2023: Sentenced to prisión permanente revisable and 15 years.
May 3, 2023: Appeal lodged with the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de La Rioja.
March 14, 2024: Supreme Court dismisses his appeal in full.