The judge sends the young man who assaulted Rajoy in 2015 to jail for trying to kill a journalist

The young man is accused of assaulting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy during an election walk after he was arrested in Pontevedra in 2015.The young man is accused of assaulting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy during an election round after he was arrested in Pontevedra in 2015. Lavandeira jr (EFE)

The Investigatory Court 3 of Pontevedra this Saturday ordered the placement in a temporary prison and without bail for Andrés de VF, the 25-year-old man who stabbed a journalist last Friday in the newsroom of the newspaper La Voz de Galicia Pontevedra as reported by the Supreme Court of Galicia. The alleged assailant is charged with the crimes of attempted homicide, assaulting police officers while resisting arrest, and damaging property and causing injury. The young man is the same person who punched Mariano Rajoy in the face in the Galician city of Lérez in 2015.

The incident began after two o’clock in the afternoon last Friday, when the now-arrested man, armed with a knife, appeared at the Pontevedra headquarters on Galician day and, visibly upset, he began hitting the computers and other effects of the installations with a rolling pin. At the time there were two workers in the newsroom, whom he assured that he was doing this in retaliation for publishing the news in that newspaper two days earlier. The young man who hit Mariano Rajoy was convicted of another attack in Ourense. He then injured journalist Alfredo López Penide, a spokeswoman for the Pontevedra National Police said. The reporter and editor for events and courts in Pontevedra suffered “minor” injuries to his arm while trying to defend himself.

Police arrested him shortly thereafter, but it took the intervention of six officers to reduce him, the regional newspaper said. The attacker was transferred to the Pontevedra Hospital Complex (CHOP) Psychiatric Ward. The victim was taken to Montecelo de Lérez Hospital with a stab wound to the hand that required 10 stitches and bruises. Relatives of the attacker were able to contact the newspaper shortly afterwards to “regret the facts and apologize”.

In 2015, the now 25-year-old was 17 when he attacked Rajoy. The then Prime Minister and PP candidate for re-election – the elections took place in December and the PP won – walked through the center of Pontevedra in the middle of the election campaign. Andrés VF approached the politician to ask for a photo and shortly afterwards slapped him in the face. When he was arrested, agents asked him why he did it, and he replied, “He hit him because he had two salaries.”

The juvenile court of Pontevedra sentenced Andrés VF to two years of internment in a closed regime for committing an assault crime. He was arrested again four years later for hitting a Vox leader, but the case was settled with a settlement between the parties. Still, at the end of 2019, a court in the city of Lérez convicted him of injuries, the Galician newspaper adds.

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A third arrest was made in 2020. National Police officers accused him of assaulting a customer at a bar in Ourense. He was put on trial two days ago and the young man admitted the facts and accepted the agreed sentence, taking into account as mitigation that the attacker suffered from a mental disorder, the newspaper said. For these incidents, Andrés VF has to pay a fine of 540 euros for bodily harm and another 90 euros for minor threats to the court. In addition, as civil liability, the perpetrator must compensate the injured party for EUR 2,050. The information about this conviction led to the attack on the journalist, which has now put him in prison.