Enrique Vives, the confessed responsible for the deaths of six young people near Santa Marta, seeks a new agreement with the justice system

Enrique Vives, the businessman who was involved in a fatal accident that took the lives of six young people in 2021, remains in the middle of a legal process to respond, to justice, for the crimes that are attributed to him. The man is accused of having run over the victims while they were walking along a road in Santa Marta. Vives was driving while intoxicated. On this occasion, it became known that his defense resorted to another appeal to reach an agreement with the accusing body.

In a three-page document, the Office of the Attorney General was asked to evaluate the possibility of varying the conduct that was charged to Vives and, subsequently, to conclude a pre-agreement between the two parties. “The conduct is not structured as an eventual intent, there would be room for the structure of the behavior of guilt or even guilt with representation under the criterion of recklessness and neglect (...) Under the principles of education and pedestrian self-determination in which they had to establish that for this purpose it was necessary to take care and self-endanger”, the document reads.

The defense, to argue its request, also shielded itself from insisting on the possible responsibility that the victims of the accident would have, since, for the time being, they were not mobilizing through the pedestrian zone, but were walking on the vehicular route. “Under the principles of education and pedestrian self-determination in which they had to establish that for this purpose it was necessary to take care and self-endanger,” the defense team explained.

On May 3, the defense of Vives expects a meeting with prosecutor Mario Burgos to receive a response to the request. On the other hand, Rodrigo Martínez, the victims' lawyer, clarified that “it was a requirement of the insurance company, taking into account that intentional crimes are not subject to compensation measures (...) a document was signed where compensated victims requested change of behavior”.

It was last February when it was reported that the crime charged to Enrique Vives Caballero could go from eventual malice to wrongful death, after six of the seven families of the victims hit by the politician and businessman reached an agreement with the vehicle's insurance company. Vives' lawyers sought to speed up the process to make the policy effective and thus deliver money to the families of the six people who died in the accident that occurred on September 13, 2021 in the Gaira sector, in Santa Marta. “He committed serious recklessness, even though he was aware that he was putting his life and that of other people at risk,” the Prosecutor's Office noted before the accident.

“All the victims' families agreed and received the financial resources of the compensation provided by the insurer as compensation for the damage caused by the loss of life caused by this road accident,” the victims' lawyer Rodrigo Martínez told Caracol Radio.

“It is already a fact that the victims are not going to continue the criminal action against the driver, and they also asked the Prosecutor's Office to modify the judicial conduct from eventual intent to wrongful death for which they must respond,” said the lawyer representing two of the victims to El Tiempo.

Enrique Vives Caballero is part of one of the most important and prestigious families in Magdalena, according to what has been highlighted by the national media. In 2015 he aspired to the Council for the list endorsed by signatures of the candidate for mayor of Santa Marta, Aristides Herrera. At that time it won 1,065 votes.

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