The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court has upheld the three-year prison sentence for the captain of a small boat intercepted in southern Gran Canaria, in a ruling that stands out not only for the seriousness of the crimes but also for the unusual brevity of the defense's appeal. The presiding judge, Ángel Luis Hurtado, dedicated a substantial portion of the legal reasoning to pointing out that the appellant devoted barely a single page to challenging the violation of the presumption of innocence, resorting to generic arguments that bordered on inadmissibility.
This lack of in-depth argumentation prevented the court from engaging in a complex legal debate, limiting its review to verifying the rationality of the previous ruling by the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands. The Supreme Court warns that the practice of submitting "clones" of previous appeals, without providing a reasoned critique of the appellate court's grounds, distorts the system of extraordinary appeals. The brief was so brief that the court emphasizes that, strictly speaking, it could have been dismissed outright without further analysis.
The case under review involves the rescue of 45 people of sub-Saharan origin who were traveling in a 20-meter vessel lacking safety systems. Sentence 309/2026 establishes that intent in crimes against the rights of foreigners does not depend on personal motives; even if the accused captained the vessel seeking "a better life" like any other migrant, his criminal responsibility is sealed by virtue of having assumed command of a voyage that endangered the lives of the occupants.
The ruling also blocks the prosecution's appeal, which sought to increase the sentence to four years. The Supreme Court applied the per saltum doctrine to prevent the prosecution from increasing the sentence in the final stage of the proceedings if it had not previously requested it from the appeals court. The prosecution's tacit consent in lower courts protected the original three-year sentence, preventing the court from now correcting what the prosecution considered an improper application of mitigating circumstances.
For the Criminal Chamber, the strength of the prosecution's evidence—especially the testimony of a protected witness who identified the employer in court—means that the "one-page appeal" has no chance of success. The ruling reminds legal professionals that appeals to the Supreme Court require a direct and well-founded debate, moving beyond mere rhetorical repetitions that fail to overturn the presumption of correctness of the Canary Islands courts.
