The skipper of the Villa de Pitanxo is, for the moment, the only one investigated in the case of the death of 21 crew members of the Galician trawler on February 15 in Newfoundland. The National Court - the court in charge of the investigation until the question of jurisdiction is resolved - also accepted the criminal complaint filed by the relatives against the ship's owner, Grupo Nores, which they accuse together with the skipper of alleged crimes of homicide due to serious recklessness , against the rights of workers and cover-up. But the families of the deceased are not satisfied and in the coming days they will ask Judge Ismael Moreno to reconsider his decision regarding Eduardo Rial, the captain's nephew and survivor, along with him and Samuel Kwesi, of the tragedy.

They base their accusation on the statement offered by the sailors of the ship Playa Menduiña 2', the ship that rescued the survivors of the Pitanxo. In them, some members of the crew assured that Rial confessed that his uncle was lying, but that he would cover it up when he reached land and would give the version that his uncle told him.

So far, the story of the two relatives has been the same, while that of Kwesi contradicts them and assures and blames the captain for the sinking of the ship. "We understand that Eduardo Rial's statement was not truthful, but that he carried out his uncle's strategy," the relatives lamented, for which they will request that he be investigated and not a witness to the events by observing "a behavior that could entail a alleged crime of concealment or false testimony”, among others. The role that Rial plays in clarifying the case is fundamental, taking into account that at the moment there is no scheduled descent operation to the wreck that would allow knowing the material causes of the shipwreck. Regarding his actions in the moments prior to the tragedy, Samuel himself declared that Rial was one of the first to call his uncle's attention when the ship muddied and angrily asked him to let go of the nets to prevent the ship from be drowned However, and once on board the ship that saved them, the versions of one and the other merged in what the families describe as a clear "cover-up".

Regarding the procedural situation of the survivor, the magistrate Ismael Moreno decided to exclude Eduardo Rial from the lawsuit because he had already been summoned to testify as a witness, although clarifying that this decision was adopted "without prejudice to what results from the proceedings to practices" . The head of the Central Court of Instruction number 2 also recently authorized the Civil Guard to analyze the content of the cell phone of one of those who died in the shipwreck of the 'Villa de Pitanxo', which was found along with his body and that the fisherman's brother handed over to agents. The objective is to access, analyze, dump and extract data in order to locate documents, electronic files, computer programs, photographs, videos, agendas, conversations or any other type of element that may be related to the facts and help in the investigation. The results will be of great relevance taking into account the criticisms leveled at the management of the skipper Padín aboard the Pitanxo.

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