Six people have died and three others have been seriously injured in an accident in Los Palacios (Seville) when a goods truck collided this morning against a Civil Guard checkpoint. The truck driver, who was unharmed, has been placed in provisional prison without bail, accused of six alleged crimes of reckless homicide and three crimes of serious injury due to recklessness. Among the fatalities are two armed institute agents who were at that checkpoint. The rest of the deceased are civilians who were inside two other vehicles held at the same checkpoint. Two of them had police records for drug trafficking. The other three injured are also members of the same body. Throughout the morning two other civil guards who were part of the operation also required medical attention, according to sources from the Government Delegation.
The accident occurred around 4:40 in the morning this Tuesday, when members of the Civil Guard of the Rapid Action Group (GAR) who were at an anti-drug control at kilometer 25 of the AP-4 direction Seville, proceeded to stop a trailer, as investigation sources explain to this newspaper. According to those same sources, after receiving the instructions, the driver performed a “sudden and strange maneuver,” in which he swerved toward the shoulder where three official GAR vehicles and three civilian vehicles were stopped, running over them. In his statement before the judge, the truck driver has assured that he did not see the control, judicial sources indicate.
Although from the beginning we worked with the hypothesis that it was an accident probably caused by “tiredness, sleep or a mistake”, in the late afternoon the investigations were opened and the content was also investigated. of the truck, investigation sources indicate. The vehicle is in custody and the corresponding searches are being carried out. “There could be something strange,” indicate the same interlocutors, who also do not rule out that the accident was caused directly by the driver’s drowsiness.
Commander Rafael Jiménez, who directs the accident reconstruction team of the Civil Guard, which has worked all day at the scene of the accident, told the press that there was no doubt that it was an accident “in which there was no there had been intention.” Throughout the day we have been working with the hypothesis that the truck driver was suffering from drowsiness and when he noticed the control cones on the road he would think that it was construction work. “When they stopped him is when he made the maneuver, getting into the opposite lane and without the possibility of straightening out as it was a large truck,” indicate the official sources consulted. However, late in the afternoon the scope of the investigation was opened, opening options beyond the accidental cause.
The specialists have downloaded the truck’s tachograph to check the speed at which it was traveling at the time of the accident and are also analyzing the braking marks. “The truck was left parallel to the highway and the tractor unit was left perpendicular to the road,” described the person in charge, who indicated that the control was correctly marked. Jiménez, however, has acknowledged that this is the “most terrible” accident he has experienced.
What affects the most is what happens closest. So you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
The driver of the truck was uninjured and the alcohol and drug tests performed on him were negative. The Court of First Instance and Instruction number 1 of Utrera (Seville), which was on duty when the accident occurred, has ordered, at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, his entry into provisional prison, communicated and without bail. Initially, he is accused of six alleged crimes of reckless homicide and three crimes of serious injury due to recklessness.
The driver was accompanied by a second person, who was also asleep at the time of the accident and who, like the driver, was not injured either. The trailer, which was transporting tomatoes, came from the port of Algeciras (Cádiz) and was scheduled to arrive in Guarromán (Jaén). The truck driver worked for the road logistics and goods transport company Transmoro SL, located in Lucena del Puerto (Huelva). One of his legal advisors has traveled to the scene of the incident, as confirmed by one of the company’s officials. The company – “devastated by what happened” – has declined to make any further statements until what happened is clarified “out of respect for the families of the deceased.”
The deceased were colleagues of an agent who died in Barbate
The Civil Guard has conveyed its “condolences” to the families of the deceased and injured through its X account. “A painful goodbye to the six people who lost their lives in a serious road accident that occurred this morning in Los Palacios (Seville), among them First Corporal Eneko and Civil Guard Juan Jesús, belonging to the GAR (Rapid Action Group) , who were serving in a police verification device.” The deceased, as reported by the armed institute, are First Corporal Eneko Lira Gómez, who turned 37 this Thursday, born in Barakaldo, although he lived in Vitoria (Álava); and the civil guard Juan Jesús López Álvarez, 34 years old, from El Ejido (Almería), and stationed in Logroño. Lira had been married eight months ago, indicate unofficial sources from the armed institute, and López was single, as confirmed by the mayor of El Ejido, Paco Góngora, who has decreed a day of official mourning.
Two of the three injured are serious, but out of danger, according to Commander Fernández. The first two have been transferred to the Virgen de Valme Hospital and the third, whose condition is more worrying, is in the Traumatology area of the Virgen del Rocío hospital in Seville. Throughout the morning, two other civil guards who were part of the operation and who had remained in the area began to feel unwell and unwell and went to the hospital by their own means to undergo tests, sources from the Government Delegation.
A painful goodbye to the 6 people who lost their lives in a serious road accident that occurred this morning in Los Palacios #Sevillaamong them Corporal 1st Eneko and Civil Guard Juan Jesús, belonging to the #GARwho provided service in a verification device… pic.twitter.com/wrEfuw7XIT
— Civil Guard (@guardiacivil) March 19, 2024
The two deceased agents were part of the 2nd Rapid Deployment Team of the Rapid Action Operational Team that is based in Seville and were colleagues of David Pérez, the GAR agent who died after being hit by a drug boat in Barbate on February 9. . The Unified Association of the Civil Guard (AUGC) has requested in a statement an exhaustive investigation of the accident this morning and has insisted on demanding that the Ministry of the Interior classify the civil guards as risk workers. The general director of the Civil Guard, Leandro Marcos, held a meeting this afternoon in Seville with the GAR colleagues of the deceased and injured agents and was able to learn what happened in a meeting with the commanders of the armed institute in Seville. Marcos has indicated that confidential information has been opened and that an evaluation will be carried out by the occupational risk service.
Two of the deceased civilians had a history of drug trafficking
Regarding the four deceased civilians, one of them was a resident of Barbate (Cádiz), another from Ceuta, a third from the Sevillian town of Dos Hermanas and the fourth is a foreigner, probably originally from Morocco, according to official sources. Two of them, the one from Dos Hermanas, which goes by the initials DP and the one from Ceuta, M., have police records for drug trafficking, reports Jesús A. Cañas. The first of them had a long history linked to drug trafficking, as this newspaper has learned.
The device deployed and the hours at which the controls were being carried out, in the middle of the night, show that it was a specific device against drug trafficking, several sources linked to the fight against drug trafficking agree. The GAR is an elite unit in the Civil Guard that has been working for years in Andalusia to reinforce the fight against drug trafficking. Among their functions are specific controls for the search for drugs or weapons, common in local organized crime, which they can carry out based on information from informants and their knowledge about the functioning of the world of drug trafficking. In this case, “the selection [de las personas retenidas] It was done based on the GAR’s experience searching for drug trafficking profiles, although if they detect something else, of course they also take action,” according to anti-drug intelligence sources. The GAR know perfectly well where to position themselves and that they were in Los Palacios, near the Guadalquivir River, which is an entry route for drugs that arrive through the Strait, is not a coincidence, although the control was random and was not part of an operation specific, indicate the same interlocutors.
Commander Jiménez has assured that the control was “perfectly marked” with lights and cones. The subdelegate of the Government in Seville, Francisco Toscano, added that it was made up of 17 troops, “more than double” the minimum of eight established by the Civil Guard protocol for this type of operations. The agents were checking the detained people and vehicles when they were hit by the truck, the sources consulted indicate.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the Government of Andalusia, Juan Manuel Moreno, have been among the first public officials to show their condolences through the same social network. The mayor of Los Palacios and Villafranca (38,700 inhabitants), Juan Manuel Malle, has made all the City Council’s resources available to help the Civil Guard with whatever they need.
