Responsibility for drowning of two members of the military during training exercise

    A corporal and a soldier drowned in a lake on the military base of Cerro Muriano in Spain on December 21, 2023 during a training exercise in which approximately 60 soldiers participated.  Margarita Robles, the Minister of Defense, visited the site (see photo) on January 4, 2024, to pay homage to Carlos Leon Rico, aged 24, single and from Sevilla, who had joined the military only 7 months earlier, and Miguel Angel Jimenez Andujar, aged 34, from Cordoba, married and expecting a child, who had participated in missions in Latvia and Lebanon, and was an instructor in these exercises, who attempted to rescue the soldier.  The Minister who visited the base asked the soldiers in the company to which they belonged not to hide anything in their testimony in court: "We are all human and we commit mistakes.  If there have been mistakes, then we need to know about them.  I ask all of you to tell the absolute truth about what happened."

When the first soldiers began to cross, the bottom of the lake was muddy and in many places it was not possible to stand and various soldiers began to call for help and scream that they were drowning and others who were waiting to enter the water jumped in to rescue them.  After a few minutes of chaos, the majority managed to get out onto terra firma but they realized that the corporal and the soldier were missing.  They didn't find the two until late in the afternoon.

Agents from the Civil Guard, the Police, the Fire Department from Cordoba and members of the military comprised the search party to look for the two missing members who had drowned in the military training manoeuvre.  The lake is 200 square meters across and many military exercises are conducted there, such as crossing the lake with tanks or other machinery.

For the previous two weeks, about 20 soldiers, including Carlos Leon Rico, were carrying an inert mine in their backpakcs that weighed about 2-3 kilos, which was a punishment for performing the previous exercise badly.  Physical punishments are prohibited in the Army, not to mention that the extra weight could have contributed to the drowning.  This could have been the crime of abuse of authority or mistreatment of someone of inferior status.

The civilian court in Cordoba ordered the removal of the cadavers and has taken charge of the initial proceedings.  But the investigation has been halted because the military court in Sevilla presented a petition calling on the civilian court to turn the case over to them.  The public prosecutor has called for the case to be turned over to the military court in Sevilla, but the parents of the corporal and his widow and the family of the soldier are opposed, because they want the case to stay in the civilian court because they consider the death to be the result of a certain kind of homicide (dolo eventual), which is a crime that does not exist in the Code of Military Justice.  The crime is characterized by the intent to commit a crime, when during the course of events a different crime results.  For example, a thief intends to rob an old woman, and in the scuffle, the woman falls, and dies.

Before the military maneuver, a rope was extended around the banks of the river, but it was not firmly attached and did not fulfill the function of a life-line.  The soldiers could not grab on to it when they lost footing  Also there was no ambulance nor medical support in the area.  The captain who led the company and did not order the exercise suspended for the risks that were involved, was removed from his command 24 hours later by order of the Chief of Staff of the Army.  No charges have been filed against him to date.