Self-defence plea rejected - prostitute gets nine years for knifing client

prisoninteriorA Portuguese national has been convicted of killing a man in Spain twelve-and-a-half-years ago.

The crime dates to December 18, 2005, when the prostitute from Brazil, with Portuguese nationality, stabbed her client 16 times with a kitchen knife.

The woman has been sentenced to nine years in prison for the murder of her client in Alfafar, Valencia, in Spain.

The victim and the prostitute met in a nightclub on the night of December 18th, 2005, and agreed to have sex in the man's home for €120.

After sex, the 21-year-old prostitute wanted to leave, but the man, aged 49, did not want her to go, which led to an argument.  Fearing for her safety, the woman struck the victim on the head with a plaster sculpture and tried to escape, heading toward the kitchen.

It was here that that the physical assault became more serious. The man threw her to the ground and sat on her and started to choke her. To defend herself, the woman took a kitchen knife and plunged the blade into his jugular vein, then stabbing him a further 15 times.

The Valencia court did understand the plea of self-defence but pointed out that the "means taken to defend herself were disproportionate to the gravity and intensity of the threat posed by the man who had consumed alcohol and therefore had his diminished reflexes."

After the stabbing, the woman fled to Portugal by train. The man’s body was found the next morning by his sister.

The suspect, illegally in Spain, was detained by the Portuguese authorities in 2006 and only now has been sentenced.