The revenge of the Vargas clan by shooting against the pastor who wanted to mediate a separation | Madrid News

What began with the separation of a young couple, Abraham Vargas and Nerea J., ended with an ambush and a crime. On March 16, 2022, evangelical pastor Joaquín Jiménez, 47, had just left his house in the Madrid district of San Blas, without knowing that a few meters ahead he was going to be shot by the Vargas. Jiménez tried to mediate a separation under gypsy laws, which establish that if there is a divorce, the husband’s parents must pay a kind of fine to the wife’s parents, who, in this case, was also pregnant. But both families had not come to an agreement for months. For this reason, they asked for the intercession of the pastor, who tried to restore order. Failing to do so, Abraham’s family decided to attack the messenger. This is how Pastor Joaquín lost his life. The last thing he said before he died was “Tabita”, the name of one of his daughters.

On the day of the crime, Enrique, Abraham’s father, had called his brother Antonio to tell him that there was a problem that needed a solution. They both knew what that meant. Enrique got into the car with his son and his wife, Gema, and Antonio did the same with his son Cristian. In his hand he had a firearm. On the way to the area where the pastor lived, the occupants of both cars communicated by telephone. When they glimpsed their target, one of the large-displacement vehicles cut off the shepherd’s car, which crashed wildly, and the other car was placed next to it. Antonio got out of it and shot the shepherd.

Afterwards, they all fled to Seville, where Abraham turned himself in to the Civil Guard and claimed that he had been the material author of the shots. “This is what the patriarchs decided,” according to the words of Abraham himself, who has also indicated that he shot into the air on the trip between Madrid and the Andalusian capital so that “remnants of paraffin” remained in his hand.

This is the account of the events that have been broken down this Friday by the members of the Vargas family accused of this crime who, in the first session of the trial in the Provincial Court, have assumed partial responsibility for what happened. “I’m sorry for the events that have caused my head to heat up,” said Enrique, the father of the boyfriend who wanted to separate. According to his version, the fine he had to pay for the separation had risen from 18,000 to 30,000 euros and that caused “stress in his head.”

Some of those accused today have maintained that they did not even know who they were going for, that they thought they were going to find the father of the girl who wanted to separate, named Teodoro. “I thought they had summoned us to kill us and I went to defend my brother,” summarized Antonio, the confessed author of the shots that killed Joaquín. “They tell me that there is a problem and I will do whatever it takes, with sticks or by force,” his son Cristian has supported.

The version of the motive for the crime held by the victim’s family, represented by lawyer Marcos García Montes, differs. The deceased’s niece assures that, upon not finding any way to resolve the bitter conflict between the Vargas and the Cleans, the pastor told Nerea, the wife, to report her husband to the police for the mistreatment she claimed to suffer. “That same morning, the girl filed a complaint and, at three in the afternoon, they had killed my uncle,” says this woman at the doors of the Provincial Court. In a moment of tension in the room, one of the deceased’s relatives came out calling the accused “murderers.”

The Vargas have wanted to leave Gema, Abraham’s mother, defended by lawyer Carlos Sánchez Peribáñez, out of the criminal plan. “I forced her to get into the car. “I can’t remember a face that was more horrified than my wife’s when we went to do such grievous things,” her husband explained. Enrique. Gema went to live in Mallorca after the events, where she was arrested at the end of 2022 after weeks of phone tapping by the police. Antonio’s other son, named Luis, has also denied his participation, against whom only the victim’s family had filed an accusation, but not the Prosecutor’s Office. After this Friday’s session, it is expected that the private prosecution will also withdraw it as there is not enough evidence to incriminate him.

Dozens of Joaquín Jiménez’s relatives waited at the doors of the court for news of what happened inside the courtroom, which only the women of the family had access to. The rest of the sessions are scheduled to take place with the statements of police investigators, experts and eyewitnesses, despite the recognition of the guilt of the accused. The revenge against the pastor came after a separation in which he only tried to help.